Movie fans have long loved James Bond not just for his smooth moves but also for having cool stuff: his Aston Martins, his weapons and spy devices.
Growing up in Boulder in the early 1970s, Ted Ax had the Bond lifestyle squarely in his sights.
He saw “The Spy Who Loved Me,” “Goldfinger” and “The Man with the Golden Gun” and wanted the cars and gadgets.
The problem was there was no place to buy the toys. Stores had cheap plastic guns and other “spy gear” that would easily break and was no match for the gear Ax saw in the Bond films.
So Ax did what most boys had neither the inclination nor the ability to do: He started channeling gadget man Q and made his own Bond gear.
He fashioned a “wristwatch gun” using stretchy metal strap watches, he raided his mom’s kitchen for pots that became helmets, he bought a tiny Minox camera to take photographs.
Then one day walking home from high school, he saw the Aston Martin – oops, a 1967 Sunbeam Alpine – parked in his neighborhood and dreamed of driving it in the Swiss Alps, or at least the Rockies.
A few months later it was for sale, and 25 years later Ax still has it, a sleek and sporty little silver number with target detail on the side, a “bullet hole” on the driver’s side door, a revolving European license plate and rear tail lights that turn into “guns.”
“She’s no beauty queen, but we’ve had a lot of fun,” Ax says of the car, which draws attention wherever it goes.
Ax keeps his Bond toys – some he made and some he was given – in a hard-sided silver case, just like a real agent might carry.
In addition to the wristwatch gun, there’s a “golden gun” replica from the movie that shares the name, a gift from his wife, publicist Kuviana Ax. The gold “lighter” and “cigarette case” morph into a “gun” when it’s time for action.
There’s also a very old box of John Player cigarettes and a watch with a stem that pulls out into a “string” that doubles as a garotte.
What started as a hobby when he was 16 and fixing up the Alpine turned into a profession: Ax is a mechanic with Sports Car Craftsmen in Arvada and works on British and European cars. The ones he can’t live without he takes home. He has a 1969 black Citroën with white top that he has restored, a Citroën wagon and a couple of Peugeots. (The French build better cars than they’re given credit for, he says.) His wife drives a vintage MG.
Ax, 41, remains obsessed with Bond and his gear. “It’s a sick hobby,” he says. “I’m still tragically addicted to gadgets.”
– Suzanne S. Brown
