Creator

James Bond Aston Martin DB5

The gadgets are pure Goldfinger joy, even if the shape plays it a bit safe.

Brick Rated Score

3.9/5

Set 10262 · 2018

Pieces1,297

Minifigsn/a

Year2018

Set number10262

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The verdict

This one is all about the gadgets, and they genuinely delight.

You press a tile behind the driver's seat and an ejector seat fires a passenger clean through the roof, which never stops being funny. The bodywork is the sticking point, because the real DB5 is all flowing curves and this model comes out a little boxy and upright, especially around the back. If you love 007 and you build for the play features, you'll grin the whole way through. If you build for perfect proportions, you'll notice what's missing.

Best for: James Bond fans who care more about working gadgets than showroom curves

The full review

What it is

Let's be clear about what this LEGO® set actually is, because it changes how you feel about it. This is a display car built around a suitcase full of Goldfinger gadgets, and the gadgets are the whole reason to own it. Designed by Mike Psiaki and released in 2018, the Creator Expert DB5 recreates the most famous spy car ever put on screen, right down to the tricks that made kids of a certain age gasp in 1964. You get a working ejector seat that flings a passenger up through a hinged roof panel, revolving front and rear number plates on little dials, a bulletproof shield that rises behind the rear window, machine guns that slide out from the front wings, and rotating tyre scythes on the wheels. There's even a hidden telephone tucked in the door and a radar tracker screen in the dash. Half the fun of building it is discovering how each mechanism is engineered underneath, because these aren't stickers pretending to be features, they genuinely move.

The catch

Now the part reviewers argued about for years. The real Aston Martin DB5 is one of the most beautiful curved shapes ever built, and shrinking that into brick is brutally hard. LEGO nailed it on the Beetle and the Mini Cooper, so expectations were high, and this one didn't quite clear the bar. From straight on it looks handsome in that silver-grey. From other angles it reads a little square and upright, and the flowing tail of the real car flattens out into something boxier than it should be. Jay's Brick Blog was blunt, calling it one of the weaker-looking Creator Expert models of its era, and plenty of builders agreed the form feels slightly rushed. The price stung too. At 149.99 dollars for 1,297 pieces, the parts-to-cost ratio ran leaner than the Beetle or the Mini, and you're paying partly for the license. There's also no minifigure, so the seat ejects a plain figure rather than a proper Bond.

Who it's for

So who ends up loving this one? If you're a James Bond fan, honestly, none of the shape complaints will matter much once that ejector seat pings a figure across the room for the tenth time. The playability is the point, and on that front it delivers something no other car set does. If you're a purist who lines up cars by silhouette accuracy, you'll probably want the VW T1 or the Mini instead and admire this one from across the room. It retired in December 2021 and now sells well above its old price on the secondary market, so it's held value nicely as a piece of Bond history. Go in wanting the gadgets, not a perfect scale model, and you'll be very happy with it.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

The build runs in clear stages and it's paced well for a car of this size. You start with a surprisingly dense chassis, because every one of those gadgets needs a mechanism hidden below the floor, so the first stretch is all gearing, levers and Technic connections for the ejector seat, the sliding guns and the rising shield. It's the most interesting part of the build by far, a proper puzzle of how so many functions share one small footprint. Once the mechanicals are in, you move to the silver bodywork and the pace turns gentler, layering slopes and curved bricks over the frame. Testing each gadget as you finish it is genuinely satisfying, and the roof panel that hinges up for the ejector seat is a lovely bit of engineering.

For parts, the headline is the then-new 1x2 curved slope, and there are 44 of them working hard to shape the flanks and engine cover. The Metallic Silver wheel mesh insert was brand new and unique to this set at launch, so it's a genuine one-off for collectors. You also get a healthy pile of that flat silver-grey in slopes and tiles, which is a useful colour to bank for other builds. It's not the richest parts haul in the Creator Expert line, and the 1,297 count leans on a lot of small connective pieces to make the mechanisms tick, which is part of why the value felt thin. But the gadget-building techniques are the real souvenir here, clever little mechanisms you'll remember long after the box is recycled.

Fun facts

01The car recreates the Aston Martin DB5 from 1964's Goldfinger, widely called the most famous car in film history, and every gadget in the set matches one Q installed in the movie.
02It was designed by Mike Psiaki, the same LEGO designer behind celebrated sets like the Volkswagen T1 Camper Van and the original UCS-scale creations, which is partly why the divisive shape surprised so many fans.
03This was LEGO's first-ever officially licensed James Bond set, arriving decades into the film series.
04It retired in December 2021 and now regularly sells for well over its 149.99 dollar retail price, making it one of the better-appreciating Creator Expert cars.