Old movies have a wonderful way of reminding us about some of the classic sports cars dating back to the 1960s and the characters that drove them. This was 20 years before product placement and embedded marketing became a lucrative form of advertising and a normal marketing practice.

When EON productions decided to use the Aston Martin DB5 in the 1964 James Bond movie Goldfinger, they approached Aston Martin thinking that they would jump at the opportunity to supply a couple of free cars for the publicity, but the answer was "no" -- they would have to purchase the cars. EON purchased two DB5s and sold them back to Aston Martin when they had finished with them.

Since then, James Bond films have featured Aston Martin cars as an important part of 007's equipment, with the exception of three films starring Pierce Brosnan in which he drove BMWs. It did not take long for an outcry from fans pressuring the producers to return to the traditional Aston Martin. The DB5 used in the driving scenes was stolen from an aircraft hanger in Florida and has never been seen since.

The gadget car was used in the movies for all of the special effects; the gadgets were removed when the car was returned to the factory in 1968. In 1977, the chairman of Aston Martin U.S.A. asked Jerry Lee, the current owner, if he would allow the DB5 to be displayed at the New York Auto Show. Aston Martin would pay for the gadgets to be reinstalled. It was a huge success and the car was displayed one more time in 1981.

When an Aston Martin specialist suggested to Lee that the DB5 might be worth as much as $ 5 million, he decided to sell it. The proceeds of the sale will be used to further the charitable work of The Jerry Lee Foundation, a multinational initiative dedicated to solving social problems associated with poverty, with an emphasis on crime prevention. RM Auctions will sell the DB5 at their Automobiles of London event on Oct. 27.