Cincinnati Banker Buys The Most Famous Car In The World: $4.6 Million For James Bond's Goldfinger-era Aston-Martin

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Such a man with a Midas touch. Union Savings Bank exec Harry Yeaggy bid $4.6 million at a London auction yesterday to buy James Bond's 1964 Aston Martin DB5.  Sean Connery drove it in the Goldfinger and Thunderball movies.  Remember it racing though the Alps?  Yeaggy told British reporters that he plans to put the car in a museum he has back home in Greater Cincinnati. The car is iconic and is considered the most famous vehicle on Earth. The London Daily Mail said, "There won't be any Bond girls for Mr. Yeaggy, or any vodka martinis as he does not drink. But he will be taking his wife for a spin and he will certainly be able to impress her with an array of gadgets."

Those gizmos, of course, were designed by Q, the gadget master of Her Majesty's Secret Service in the Bond films. There's an oil-slick sprayer, a revolving license plate with French and Swiss tags, smoke screen dispenser and bullet-proof shield. The ejector seat apparently has been disabled and the pop out machine guns and tire-shredders were add ons for Connery's ride in the Bond films. Here's a YouTube clip from the movie Golfinger of the scene of Q giving Harry Yeaggy's Aston Martin to James Bond. Q explains it's an experimental model. And here's a chase scene from Goldfiner with Yeaggy's DB5 in the the Alps (dubbed in French). Now, the car has 30,000 miles on the odometer and can reach 145 mph tops. 0 to 60 takes about 7 seconds. Sotheby's and RM auctions in London held the sale, and the car went for less than the estimated pre-sale price.

It belonged to Jerry Lee, a Philadelphia broadcaster who bought it from the Aston Martin factory in 1969. Lee paid $12,000. Goldfinger himself would be impressed by the profit. Lee says he plans to use the money for a charity, the Jerry Lee Foundation, that fights poverty and crime. Author Dave Worrall christened the Bond's DB5 the most famous car in the world. Worrall writes books about James Bond movies and memorabilia.

The Daily Mail piece has lots of photos of the car in London. Here's another story from the International Business Times. Cincinnati's Yeaggy may not have shaken up the world, but he's certainly stirred things. Remember the name, Yeaggy, Harry Yeaggy.

CIA Klled Ohio's Antioch College? Shaken Not Stirred In Yellow Springs

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- The Green Party's unsuccessful 2006 gubernatorial candidate in Ohio is out with a James Bond style license-to-kill tale: The CIA could be responsible for the financial problems that are causing Ohio's Antioch University to close its doors. Bob Fitrakis puts on his Ian Fleming hat and spins a conspiracy theory that has American spooks targeting the school in Yellow Springs.

All those junior Goldfingers had to be hit. M and Q and Moneypenny, or whoever their counterparts are in the American intelligence services, must have had some hand in the Yellow Springs bloodletting. So OO7 -- or whoever it is that assassinates colleges -- was put on the case. Probably somebody whose SAT was 1600. Of course, it was double o 16.

Fitrakis doesn't mention this conspiracy involves the same CIA that is so inept it failed to notice there were not any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it missed the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and somehow didn't spot the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Still, some may be glad to know the agency is suspected of having the skill to shut down a poorly managed school whose enrollment had dwindled to less than 100 freshmen.