Ian Fleming's Aceca Coupe goes up for auction
08-Sep-2010 • Collecting
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It was purchased by the thriller writer in the same year that The Spy Who Loved Me was completed - a book in which the hero Bond drives a Lotus Esprit.
Fleming bought the Aceca from the factory and it is now expected to fetch up to 130,000 pounds when it goes under the hammer at auction.
Dark blue and slick with a red leather interior, the car has been restored and would make the ideal vehicle for a budding Bond.
The two-seater handbuilt sports car is capable of 130mph with its Ford Zephyr six cylinder engine.
It has no secret gadgets, rocket-launchers or revolving number plates but does have seatbelts - unlike many cars from that era.
After Fleming, it was owned by various people and spent some time in Holland before returning to the UK and having a make-over by its current owner who is now sellling it.
The car is being sold by Bonhams at its Goodwood Revival sale in West Sussex on September 17.
Tim Schofield, an expert from Bonhams, said: "The value comes really from its rarity but it's nice to be able to hang a famous name to it, such as Ian Fleming.
"It is only one of five or six remaining with a 2.6 Ruddspeed and Ford Zephyr engine.
"These AC cars have seen their values increase over the lsat five or six years and there are collectors who would love to have it.
"Other specifications include a Moss four-speed overdrive gearbox, servo-assisted dis/drum brakes, twin electric fans, heater and radio.
"It is in its original colour and there has already been a great deal of interest in it. It is a classic handbuilt British sports car."
Fleming published the first James Bond book, Casino Royale, in 1953 and went to to pen another 13.
He died in 1964 aged 56.
He is said to have written: "I have always smoked and drunk and loved too much.
"In fact I have lived not too long but too much. One day the Iron Crab will get me. Then I shall have died of living too much."
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