Bonhams Magazine

A silver birch Aston Martin DB5 might be the car most readily linked with the cinematic James Bond, but the 26 films released so far (plus the pending No Time to Die) have created a vast firmament of lesser-known automotive stars ranging from a seemingly indestructible Citroen 2CV to a T-55 battle tank, and from a submersible Lotus Esprit to an AMC Matador that transforms into an aircraft.

But of the 15-plus different car marques, dozens of different models and hundreds of individual vehicles that have played a part in helping or thwarting Bond in his quest to save the world, only a small percentage of verified examples have survived. One that has is an action-ready Mercury Cougar XR-7, which many 007 fans will recognise from 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Notable for being the only Bond film in which Australian actor George Lazenby played the starring role, OHMSS centred around a plot hatched by cat-stroking SPECTRE boss Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas) to brainwash patients at his Swiss allergy-research institute in order to send them around the world on germ warfare missions.

Not until the Cougar came into the possession of a Bristol-based Ford Mustang enthusiast in 1990, however, was its glamorous history fully corroborated.

Ms Eminger became famous in the American car world for saving thousands of copy invoices for Ford-group cars built during and after the 1960s, following the company's decision to routinely destroy the documents after 10 years. The paperwork she turned-up confirmed that the Cougar was ordered on January 30, 1969 for a 'Bond movie,' cost $4,792.90c, left the factory six days ahead of schedule on February 6 and was registered in the UK on February 13.

"The speed with which it went from the production line in Dearborn, Michigan to being registered in the UK means it must have been flown-in for the film," explains the owner, who subsequently set about a meticulous, 30-year restoration of the car which has returned it to the exact condition in which it arrived at the Pinewood movie set.

During the rebuild, he discovered the remains of two of its original build sheets beneath the carpets, revealing it to be an ultra-rare car in its own right – of the 100,085 Cougars built in 1969, it was one of just 127 convertible examples to be fitted with the 428 ci/ seven-litre Cobra Jet engine (a $336.80c option), one of 16 to have been painted Candy Apple red, one of eight trimmed in dark red leather, one of just three with an electric roof – and the only one in such specification to leave the factory with 'hood pins.'

During three decades of ownership, he stripped the car back to its bare bones and had the body and chassis sand-blasted and acid-dipped to remove any corrosion before carefully re-assembling everything, using as many original parts as possible – and travelling to America on no fewer than seven occasions in search of elusive Cougar components.

As a final touch, he even re-created the correct red-coloured 'French visitor' licence plates and added a period ski rack and some of the very same vintage Kneissl White Star skis that are seen on the Cougar (and a clone car) throughout the chase scenes and inside the barn.

As a result, it's now ready for a new mission in the 21st century – assuming the next owner chooses to accept it......