BirchSorb’s connection to James Bond!
It’s not all science and sales pitch here at Birch Chemicals. We don’t just pride ourselves on the quality of our newest product – BirchSorb - and on the excellent customer service that stands alongside everything we do. We also look through our own history books from time-to-time and highlight the connections that lie there within…
Elsewhere we’ve told you about the charitable mindset, which is written into the make-up of our company, but in this particular edition of our blog we’re going to geek out a little bit and tell you about an amazing connection to the worlds of espionage and movies!
Where it all began
Lionel Martin (grandson of the founder of Singleton Birch, the parent company of Birch Chemicals) became a Director of the firm in the early part of the 20th-century. Incredibly, he used income from Singleton Birch to also found legendary high-end car company Aston Martin.
Aston Martin, of course, is synonymous with author Ian Fleming’s fictional spy James Bond.
Although Bond drove a DB Mark III in the best-selling novel Goldfinger (first published in 1959), by the time the film version of the book went into production in 1964 the DB5 had become Aston Martin’s flagship model.
The DB5 had launched the previous year and was a luxurious two-door with reclining seats, wool pile carpets, electric windows, twin fuel tanks, chrome wire wheels, and full leather trim. It was also powerful, going from 0 – 60 in 8 seconds and capable of reaching 145mph. An incredible speed, even for a spy! So popular was Bond’s car that toy manufacturer Corgi even released a licensed tie-in, highly collectible to this day.
From 1964 onwards Bond’s car of choice in several of the films was the DB5. There were actually several other vehicles used over the years, too - but the aesthetically beautiful Aston Martin DB5 is globally recognised as the one-and-only true classic ‘James Bond car’.
Several actors have played James Bond during the sixty years that the film series has been in production. The first – suave Scot Sean Connery – is perhaps the most notable. It’s to him that the Aston Martin DB5 is most connected, even despite a factual quirk undermining that public notion.
Bond’s silver DB5 debuted in Goldfinger, as we mentioned a moment ago, and it appeared again in the follow-up Thunderball (1965). Bond didn’t actually drive one again until Pierce Brosnan’s first two films. There was a real ‘punch the air’ celebratory moment as the DB5 appeared on-screen and roared up a road in Goldeneye (1995), and it also appeared in Brosnan’s second Bond outing Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).
But, incredibly, it is actually ‘modern era’ Bond which holds the record for featuring Aston Martin the most. Daniel Craig’s iteration of the British secret agent drove the DB5 in four films. He appeared at the wheel in Casino Royale (2006), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015) and No Time To Die (2021).
Other Aston Martin cars have featured prominently in the Bond film series over the years. The V8 Vantage, originally launched in the late 1970s, first appeared in 1987’s The Living Daylights (which starred Timothy Dalton) and again in No Time To Die, which was Craig’s last outing. That film also featured the car company’s current flagship the DBS, and its revolutionary mid-engineered sportscar the Valhalla.
Aston Martin & James Bond
What is it about Aston Martin that so ‘fits’ the James Bond brand? It’s obviously something to do with the Britishness of its original era, and the cachet that brings. The beautiful design, the careful manufacturing, the attention to detail, the sheer quality. This is, of course, also reflective of anything else connected to Singleton Birch.
Aston Martin is responsible for many other highly desirable vehicles, but the DB5 and the connection to the James Bond series remains an iconic relationship. They say history is one thing after another, a continuing sequence of developments and twists and turns of fate. It’s truly amazing to consider that the fact James Bond drives a particular car is due in part to the efforts of William Singleton Birch, mineral merchant, and all of his hard work in the 19th-century to grow his organisation.
How does BirchSorb fit in with James Bond?
Now we’ve reached the final couple of paragraphs you may have caught your breath and asked: “It’s all very exciting, but what does any of this actually have to do with BirchSorb?”
The answer is simple. This exceptional new product is perfect for anyone who wants to protect their classic car from the damaging effects of moisture and damp, whether it’s an Aston Martin DB5 or not. In fact, BirchSorb is perfect for protecting any vehicle at all: car, motorhome, boat...
It’s an absorber specifically engineered to ‘lock in’ the moisture it removes from the air with no leakage and no re-release of humidity. It’s far more effective than silica gel, desiccated clay or calcium chloride alternatives: It can handle a minimum of twice its own weight and lasts for at least eight weeks. You can use it all year round, whether your vehicle is out and about or off-road. Put simply, just like Bond and his DB5, BirchSorb is the best there is.