AN ASTON Martin that was found in ‘barn find’ condition has been renovated - and is now worth nearly $500,000. 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 FutureStudiosCars: “So the car bought at an auction for way over its estimate at the time, which was between $37,000-$49,000, and actually sold for a little over $120,000." 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.”
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MotorTranscript
00:00It is a very, very beautiful Aston Martin, probably one of the best DB Mk3s in the world.
00:16My name's Nigel Woodward, I'm Managing Director here at Classic Motor Cars and I'm sitting
00:20in front of this Aston Martin DB Mk3.
00:23This car is a fantastic car.
00:26It was bought at auction in 2015 for way over its estimate at the time which was £30,000-40,000
00:32and actually it sold for a little over £100,000.
00:35The car was in barn find condition, it was clearly in need of a total restoration.
00:39That comes as no surprise to us, we've restored a lot of cars over the years, 4,500 hours
00:45of work have gone into it.
00:47We have a very fixed process for restoring cars, there's the sort of historical research
00:51part right at the beginning of the process.
00:53Then we strip the car down to its component form, every last nut, bolt and washer, the
00:58body and the chassis are separated, they're cleansed of old paint work and corrosion and
01:02we work out how we would best go ahead with the restoration.
01:07It was in such poor condition that we've had to effectively make a new body for the car.
01:13The body was the hardest part of the car to restore because of the nature of the clamshell
01:18bonnet.
01:19They're a coach built car, hand made from aluminium and we've had to replicate much
01:23of that original coach work.
01:25It's the last of an era, it's the last of a coach built separate chassis Aston Martin.
01:31Aston Martin built 551 of these cars in the late 1950s, it has a WO Bentley designed engine,
01:37it's a wonderful thing to drive.
01:38Here we are in the cockpit, it feels like I'm sitting back in the late 1950s.
01:43The car's equipped with an umbrella handbrake as they're known, so a bit of a throwback
01:47there to the pre-war years.
01:49We've included a radio in the restoration, the car was actually supplied with a HMV radio
01:53when it was new which would have been quite an unusual, luxurious addition to the car
01:57in its day.
01:58This is a slightly later radio that we've put some modern internals into.
02:02Let's have a look under the bonnet of this Aston Martin at the heart of the car.
02:06To get there we need to open this rather substantial bonnet catch.
02:11This has had a complete engine rebuild, smooth running, sweet idle, gives good performance.
02:18It had a cast iron cylinder head originally, they were prone to cracking, this car's got
02:22a replacement.
02:23There's a number of things which are really satisfying points in the restoration of the
02:27car.
02:28I think the first time the engine starts.
02:36We do about 400, 500 miles of testing in a car that we fully restore.
02:40It's definitely one of the perks of the job, having the privilege of driving these lovely
02:45cars.
02:47Here's a nice tight roundabout, power out of there, oh what a lovely thing.
03:00I think we can call the engine response musty, falls away lovely.
03:05Its value today, I would put it something in excess of £400,000, it absolutely feels
03:10like a £400,000 car.
03:12This car is recently completed, I'm looking forward to handing it over to the customer.
03:16He's going to end up with a very, very beautiful Aston Martin and probably one of the best
03:22DB Mark 3's in the world.