Prototype Bond boat sells for £51k at spy auction
Prototype Bond boat sells for £51k at spy auction
Danny Fullbrook - Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and BuckinghamshireSat, May 30, 2026 at 5:26 AM UTC
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Although the Scubacraft can be glimpsed in the James Bond film, it was originally developed to be used by real naval forces
A prototype speedboat that can dive underwater and featured in a James Bond film has sold at auction for £51,200.
The Scubacraft SC3 was on set at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire when scenes were filmed in Q's lab, as part of the 2015 film Spectre.
It was sold as part of an espionage-themed auction by Bonhams, which also included movie props and posters alongside objects used during World War Two.
Rebecca Anthony, head of sale, said: "From fact to fiction, this sale really captured the imagination of collectors, showing both the pull of historic items in this field and the continued allure of Bond."
At the same auction, which finished on Thursday, a German World War Two enigma machine went for £203,600 - well above its highest estimate of £160,000.
Machines like this were cracked at Bletchley Park, when British codebreakers built early computing devices to decipher them.
A German World War Two enigma machine went for £203,600
Other items ranged from a 2008 print of the complete works of Ian Fleming, which sold for £25,600, to a collection of D-Day intelligence manuals, which sold for £2,816.
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A poster for the 1954 film Rear Window, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, went under the hammer for £3,328.
Although the Scubacraft can be glimpsed in the James Bond film, it was originally developed in the late 2000s to be used by real naval forces.
Despite initial interest from national and international government sectors, only a single prototype was constructed.
In 2015, the James Bond production team read about the craft online and requested to feature it in the background of a scene in Spectre.
It can only be briefly glimpsed in the film, which also featured the boat's engineering director as an extra in Q's workshop.
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Source: “AOL Money”
