Dearborn, Michigan, March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Doug Redenius collects unusual props from the 40-year-old James Bond spy-film series, everything from submarines to snowmobiles and boats.
The secret agent's newest toy may be out of Redenius's reach: a $228,000 Aston Martin V12 Vanquish from Ford Motor Co.'s luxury auto division. The co-founder of the nonprofit Ian Fleming Foundation, honoring Bond's creator, expects better luck getting one of four Vanquish bodies Ford is supplying for the 20th film, which is in production.
"We're hoping one of these shells can find its way into our archive,'' said Redenius, who works for the U.S. Postal Service in Momence, Illinois.
Ford is spending millions of dollars to renew ties to 007 seven years after the British hero defected to cars made by Germany's Bayerische Motoren Werke AG. The second-largest automaker is looking for luxury-vehicle sales to help restore profit after a $5.45 billion loss last year. In addition to Bond's Aston Martin, Ford's Jaguars, Volvos, Land Rovers will make cameo appearances.
Cars "are playing dramatic roles in the movie,'' said Simon Sproule, a spokesman for Aston Martin Jaguar Land Rover of North America. The film series "is one of the biggest in the world.''
Worth the Investment?
While Sproule wouldn't disclose what Ford paid to the filmmakers, Business Week reported in August that the company agreed to spend more than $35 million to promote the movie.
Yet to be determined is whether spotlighting a sports car that costs more than four times the 2000 U.S. median household income of $50,800 will help Ford sell more Tauruses.
"The problem is, by definition those products are not high- volume products,'' said Alan Baum, an analyst at Farmington Hills, Michigan-based automotive forecasting firm Planning Edge.
Still, "Ford's investment is probably pretty well-grounded and the risk probably lower than other movies,'' said Eric Dahlquist, president of the Entertainment Resources and Marketing Association. The Burbank, California-based trade group helps companies promote products in movies.
The still untitled Bond movie, the latest in the series controlled by Santa Monica, California-based Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., began filming in January. Except for the Ford Thunderbird, all the Ford vehicles in the film are part of the automaker's Irvine, California-based Premier Automotive Group luxury line.
Building Sales
Ford is counting on Premier to provide a third of its profit by mid-decade, a major part of a turnaround plan announced in January. U.S. sales of Jaguar and Land Rover rose 63 percent to about 72,000 vehicles last year from 44,000 in 1998, according to Autodata Corp. Aston Martin doesn't disclose U.S. sales.
"We would hope we would sell something in the order of 100,000'' a year, compared with some 3.3 million Ford-brand vehicles sold annually in the U.S., said Mike O'Driscoll, president of Aston Martin Jaguar Land Rover of North America, in an interview.
The company seeks to preserve the brands's exclusive image while increasing the number on the road, O'Driscoll said. Jaguar introduced the X-type, which sells for about $30,000, and Land Rover now sells the $25,000 Freelander.
Aston Martin, which made about 40 cars a year in the early 1990s, wants to increase that to as many as 1,500. Its two models sell for $145,000 and $228,000. The company is looking at a third "small'' Aston, said spokesman Tim Watson.
An Aston Martin DB5 in 1964's "Goldfinger,'' was the first Bond car to feature gadgets such as an ejector seat and machine guns. An Aston Martin hasn't been the primary Bond car since 1987's "The Living Daylights,'' released the year Ford acquired the British automaker.
Bonds to Bond
Ford's U.S. brands also have a place in Bond history. A Mustang, Thunderbird and Lincoln Continental appeared in "Goldfinger,'' and 1965's "Thunderball'' contained several Ford models as well as an appearance by then-Chief Executive Officer Henry Ford II as an extra.
Ford and Aston Martin were shut out in the 1990s when MGM released three movies starring Pierce Brosnan as Bond and featuring BMW cars. Munich-based BMW used "GoldenEye'' in 1995 to market its then-new Z3 car and provided other cars and a motorcycle for the next two films.
That caused something of a stir among purists. "I don't think Fleming's Bond, a product of World War II, would have driven a BMW just because of the principle of it being a German car,'' Raymond Benson, who writes 007 novels authorized by Fleming's estate, said in an e-mail interview.
Benson, who lives in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, is also on the board of the Santa Barbara, California-based group Redenius co- founded.
"About the Money'
Gerald Meyers, a one-time CEO of American Motors Corp., remembers when that company -- later acquired by Chrysler Corp., now part of DaimlerChrysler AG -- got some cars into a 1970s Bond film, "The Man With the Golden Gun.''
"It got a lot of people the right age thinking about the cars,'' Meyers said. The automaker didn't make any promotional payments, he said.
Is a presence in a Bond movie worth $35 million? "Certainly not,'' Meyers said.
While Aston Martin's return may bring satisfaction to some fans of the British secret agent, collector Redenius said he's under no illusion about the reason.
"It's all about the money,'' Redenius said.
Regards,
