A rare Aston Martin that may have been used as an unmarked police car in the sixties has been found after half a century hidden in a garage. The DB24, built in 1955, was discovered at a property in Gloucestershire and is believed to be worth over $3000,000 when fully restored. The classic car, which became famous as the model driven by James Bond in Ian Fleming’s novels, was bought by a car enthusiast who intended to work on the engine when he retired. Instead it was covered by a sheet and forgotten by its owner, and was forgotten.
Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:0001. Worth a quarter of a million pounds, incredibly this Aston Martin hasn't been seen for almost
00:1250 years.
00:14Discovered in the Gloucestershire barn this is just one of the exciting projects currently
00:18been undertaken by Jonathan Wills and his company, Cotswold classic car restorations.
00:2301.05 Jonathan started restoring classic cars while
00:33he was still at school in the 1990s and set up Cotswold Classic Car Restorations around
00:39four years ago with the aim of working on mainly British models such as Aston Martins
00:45and Jaguars. The company currently has a full workload and Jonathan shows us some of their
00:51current restoration projects.
00:5201.05 Jonathan
00:53It's a three litre six-cylinder engine. Its stored conditions were perfect. It was in
01:01a dry, open, airy building that was heated during the winter. So the amount of corrosion
01:07that's occurred within the car is remarkable.
01:13What marks this car as absolutely unique is it's an Aston Martin DB24 which the build
01:19numbers are only in a few hundreds anyway. The few that are left are absolutely cherished,
01:26command considerable values ever rising and for the Aston collector you're not going to
01:32find this again. Potentially that restoration typically takes about a year's worth of work.
01:39Here we have the Maserati Quattroporte 1970. This is one of only two in the world and this
01:45particular car is a special commission by the Argo Con. The other one was a special
01:49commission by the King of Spain. It took three years to build this car, Maserati themselves.
01:55This car features one of the most opulent interiors you'll ever see. The super soft
01:59calf leather that the seats are trimmed in, the deep Wilton style of carpet interior you
02:04will not find on many, many cars at all. Lovely wooden dashboard with a very full complement
02:09of dials. This car would be apparently a discreet saloon. Discreet isn't a word I would use
02:16with it. And propelling this beautiful saloon car is a Quattroporte V8. Five litre in excess
02:23of 350 horsepower is a variation on Maserati's race engines. The design criteria from the
02:29Argo Con is a car that we do not the 60 in under six seconds but 170 miles an hour. It's
02:35really ahead of its time. It's in absolutely beautiful and original condition pretty much
02:40as it left the factory all those years ago. Restoration projects are very time consuming
02:46and incredibly detailed. We actually break the car down into all its component pieces.
02:52We mark out any repairs that are required as well. We can either build the car as completely
02:56original or we may be able to modify it slightly to make the car actually more up to current
03:03speed of traffic. The chassis and body would be acid dipped. That's where the actual body
03:06and chassis are put into an acid tank and left there for 48 hours and that removes all
03:12paint, it removes all the rust, all the sealers and corrosion. And when the body is removed
03:16it is then put into a neutralising tank and then the car will come back to us and we'll
03:20inspect it for any cracks or you know perforation or where the panels have become thin through
03:26corrosion. Then we go through the various processes of the restoration which include
03:31body, paint, chassis rebuild and the re-trimming of the leather and the hide and even down
03:36to the glass. If the glass is marked or damaged we'll be looking at replacing the glass if
03:41the customer requires. The main challenges in a restoration of a vehicle is getting the
03:45originality correct and working closely with the customer to ensure that the re-finish
03:52article is exactly what he wants.
03:55Despite all the beautiful vehicles Jonathan has worked on, he still has a wish list.
03:59A car we're yet to restore that we would absolutely love to be commissioned to restore would be
04:05an X Formula One car owned by Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill, James Hunt. The
04:11history with those cars, the battles that they were involved with is just second to
04:16none and it would be an absolute privilege if ever one of those projects comes our way
04:20one day. It would be a dream of mine to restore one of those cars owned by one of those fantastic
04:25drivers.
04:27And it seems Jonathan has no plans to stop working on these classic cars any time soon.
04:33Restoring classic cars is an absolute joy. It's something that I see me doing to the
04:36day I die, being involved with them. When the cars are actually completed and leave
04:41in your workshop and you've seen them progress over one or two years, it's good to see them
04:44out there being used again and the customers enjoying them.