Of the many partworks I am building, this Eaglemoss 1:8 scale James Bond Aston Martin DB5 is the first one I have completely finished. And overall, I am very pleased with it. Technically, it was a fairly simple process with most of the 261 parts pre-assembled and held together by push-fit or the 261 screws (yes, the same number of both). While my experience was mostly positive, there were many frustrating moments mostly due to the order the parts were received in and some very tricky instructions.

I started my DB5 back in June of 2019, so it took just shy of two years to assemble. I believe this was Eaglemoss’ first partwork build-up as they acquired it after merging with GE Fabbri back in 2011. The DB5 has been re-released a few times since then, with all new magazines created in 2019, but the instructions were still lacking in clarity. I had to make many adjustments to make sense of them all, including combining them with the improved PDFs from 2013. Interestingly, the simplicity of the parts and the disorganization of the assembly instructions of the DB5 was showing its age as Eaglemoss’ following projects are noticeably better. Their later offerings have more steps, more parts, and those parts seem to arrive in a much more linear way.

I feel the 1965 Aston Martin DB5 is a beautiful, regal automobile full of classical charm and sporting a deeply storied history. Even with all of the complications expected of assembling this model, I decided it was still worth owning. If we then consider the inclusion of Q’s gluttony of spy gadgets from the film Goldfinger (1964), it just made this DB5 even better! Eaglemoss did their best to include these modifications in our model. Other than the ejector seat, everything works perfectly on mine, especially the electronics with all of the lights and sounds.

In the end, I had a great time completing the Eaglemoss DB5, and I want to thank all of my visitors who hung through this build with me. I hope sharing my experiences, tips, and tricks can help others get through their own DB5 builds in some small way. I am proud to have it in my display cabinet and look forward to building many more large-scale models!