AN ASTON Martin that was found in ‘barn find’ condition has been renovated - and is now worth £400,000. Nigel Woodward, the Managing Director at Classic Motorcars in Bridgnorth, UK bought the Aston Martin DB Mark III at an auction in 2015. Nigel told Ridiculous Rides: “So the car bought at an auction for way over its estimate at the time, which was £30,000-£40,000, and actually sold for a little over £100,000." The team shortly realised the car was in such bad condition that they had to make a whole new body for it. But after 4,500 hours of hard work, the classic car is back to its original condition. Nigel said: “We are always quite sad to see long term projects leave the business. The reason we do this is so that the owner can have something that they can enjoy. And when we deliver this to the owner, it will be just as though the car has been delivered to him new - back in the late 1950s by Aston Martin.”
Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:00 It is a very, very beautiful Aston Martin.
00:04 Probably one of the best DB Mark 3s in the world.
00:16 My name's Nigel Woodward, I'm Managing Director here at Classic Motor Cars and I'm sitting
00:20 in front of this Aston Martin DB Mark 3.
00:23 This car is a fantastic car.
00:25 It was bought at auction in 2015 for way over its estimate at the time, which was £30,000
00:31 to £40,000 and actually it sold for a little over £100,000.
00:34 The car was in barn find condition.
00:37 It was clearly in need of a total restoration.
00:39 That comes as no surprise to us.
00:41 We've restored a lot of cars over the years.
00:43 4,500 hours of work have gone into it.
00:46 We have a very fixed process for restoring cars.
00:49 There's the sort of historical research part right at the beginning of the process.
00:53 We strip the car down to its component form, every last nut, bolt and washer.
00:57 The body and the chassis are separated.
01:00 They're cleansed of old paint work and corrosion and we work out how we would best go ahead
01:04 with the restoration.
01:07 It was in such poor condition that we've had to effectively make a new body for the car.
01:13 The body was the hardest part of the car to restore because of the nature of the clamshell
01:17 bonnet.
01:18 They're a coach built car, handmade from aluminium and we've had to replicate much of that
01:23 original coach work.
01:25 It's the last of an era.
01:26 It's the last of a coach built separate chassis Aston Martin.
01:30 Aston Martin built 551 of these cars in the late 1950s.
01:35 It has a WO Bentley designed engine.
01:37 It's a wonderful thing to drive.
01:38 Here we are in the cockpit.
01:40 It feels like I'm sitting back in the late 1950s.
01:42 The car's equipped with an umbrella handbrake as they're known.
01:46 So a bit of a throwback there to the pre-war years.
01:49 We've included a radio in the restoration.
01:51 The car was actually supplied with a HMV radio when it was new which would have been quite
01:54 an unusual, luxurious addition to the car in its day.
01:58 This is a slightly later radio that we've put some modern internals into.
02:02 Let's have a look under the bonnet of this Aston Martin at the heart of the car.
02:05 To get there we need to open this rather substantial bonnet catch.
02:11 This has had a complete engine rebuild.
02:13 Smooth running, sweet idle, gives good performance.
02:17 Had a cast iron cylinder head originally.
02:20 They were prone to cracking.
02:21 This car's got a replacement.
02:23 There's a number of things which are really satisfying points in the restoration of the
02:27 car.
02:28 I think the first time the engine starts.
02:36 We do about 400, 500 miles of testing in a car that we fully restore.
02:40 Definitely one of the perks of the job, having the privilege of driving these lovely cars.
02:46 Give it a nice tight roundabout, power out of there.
02:50 Oh, what a lovely thing.
02:54 I think we can call the engine response musty.
03:02 Falls away lovely.
03:05 Its value today I would put at something in excess of 400,000 pounds.
03:09 It absolutely feels like a 400,000 pounds car.
03:12 This car is recently completed.
03:13 I'm looking forward to handing it over to the customer.
03:16 He's going to end up with a very, very beautiful Aston Martin and probably one of the best
03:21 DB Mark 3s in the world.
03:23 [00:03:45] [music]
03:24 [00:04:00]
03:24 (upbeat music)