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.
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03:24 (upbeat music)
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