New lease of life for £900 Aston Martin

Bought for less than £1,000, a 1960s Aston Martin like the one James Bond famously drove has miraculously been brought back to life.

Welder and garage owner John Williams was just 19 when he made the long train trip from his home in North Wales to London to look at the car in 1973.

He acquired Vantage-engined model for £900, complete with Weber carburettors, wire wheels, Sundym electrically operated windows and, according to the advert in Motorsport magazine “many bills”.

Returning in it to Wales and proudly using the DB5 as his daily drive for upwards of four years, John mothballed the car when he secured a job in the Middle East in 1977.

“Then… ‘life’ happened,” he said.

“I’d had offers to buy her, and times when I could have done with the money, but I resisted and, as Sue [John’s wife] said ‘you’ll never get another one’.”

Sue added: “The neighbours’ kids used to come round to play, and they’d play on her. Bouncing on the bonnet. One balanced on the exhaust pipe and snapped it off!”

John said: “As time went on it became a goal of mine to get her restored; to be able to drive her again.

“Being a garage man, I was a bit ashamed that I’d let her get into that state. I worked hard to buy her, and we’ve worked hard to get her repaired.”

Naturally, the Williams’ elected to use Aston Martin Works in Newport Pagnell, the heritage home of the marque and the place where more than 13,000 of the most iconic Aston Martin sports cars were built over 50 years, to carry out the restoration which began in late 2022.

Now, around three years on from its arrival, the couple have returned to Buckinghamshire to view the completed DB5, having regularly visited the Works site to view the car’s progress through its bare metal restoration journey.

Universally acknowledged to be the most desired specification of all DB5s, the Williams car is a right-hand drive 1965 DB5 saloon with the sought-after Vantage engine.

It was originally specified in what remains, today, the most desirable exterior colour – Silver Birch – and boasts an interesting provenance that includes an original owner from the St George’s Hill area of Surrey, a gated community that, at the time, was home to many celebrities including The Beatles’ John Lennon and Ringo Starr.

Of the 1022 DB5 models built by Aston Martin between 1963 and 1965, fewer than 1000 (887) were built in the saloon bodystyle and, of those, only 39 originally boasted the Silver Birch paintwork, higher output Vantage engine, and right-hand drive configuration of the Williams car, making this a particularly rare and desirable example of ‘the most famous car in the world’.

Back in 2023, seeing their car part way through its restoration in the Works’ Panel Shop where the chassis and Superleggera frame were restored, and where each aluminium body panel was being hand formed, Sue said: “Wow! She looks amazing, doesn’t she? You’ve done such a lot of work!”

John commented: “It looks like an Aston Martin now. I’m thrilled. It’s great to see all the old ways of building a car have been passed on, and younger people here are keeping up the tradition.”

Aston Martin Works’ Paul Spires said although the car was in a profoundly run-down condition when it arrived, they always relish a challenge.

“I knew we have the skills, dedication and expertise to return the car to a better-than-new condition,” he said.

After more than 2500 hours of dedicated work by teams in the Panel, Paint, Trim and Heritage Workshops, along with vital support from the in-house Parts Department – the car is now finished and looks absolutely stunning.

“While it might be uncouth to speculate on values for the car I think it’s reasonable to suppose that if it ever were to be offered to the market once more, and bearing in mind its specification and provenance, a value of up to £1 million would be in order.

“In this 70^th anniversary year of Aston Martin’s presence here at Newport Pagnell it is inspiring to see the dedication, commitment and pride of owners such as the Williams family.”