Aston Martin DBS restoration by @retropowercars

Aston Martin DBS undergoing a full restoration by Retro power cars in Hinckley, United Kingdom set up on a Celette bench..

Transcript

00:00One of the cool projects we've got going on here at Retropower at the moment is this classic Aston Martin DBS.

00:06So this customer came to us wanting a reimagination of a 1970s Aston DBS,

00:11but with the performance and reliability to be able to undertake European road trips with a decent level of comfort as well.

00:18And 1970s Aston Martin and the word reliability are not two things you generally consider together.

00:24They were producing some really awesome cars considering the scale of the company at the time.

00:28But in all honesty, they were a little bit lacking in funds, as many will claim they are now as well.

00:33And the quality of the build suffered a little bit because of this,

00:37and some of the areas of the engineering weren't perhaps quite as good as they could be.

00:41And certainly if you compare a 70s Aston Martin reliability-wise to a brand new car, there is not really any comparison.

00:48Although again, many people will claim some new cars are also not that reliable.

00:52Our solution on this is we've engineered our own chassis completely from scratch,

00:56scratch, CAD designed and built on this select jig.

00:58This is taking Corvette C7 suspension all around, so the double wishbones at the back,

01:03the hub carriers, the brakes, double wishbone front, hub carriers and brakes, all from C7 Corvette.

01:08We're using the Chevy LT1 that you would also find in that generation Corvette,

01:12just as a really reliable way of getting the power that we want.

01:16It's got a Tremec six-speed gearbox on the back of that,

01:18and then a Camaro diff in the back, which is more than capable of taking the power.

01:23We're retaining the aluminium bodywork that this car would have originally had.

01:27Some of it has been replaced, but the vast majority we've been able to repair.

01:31And at the moment we're working on some of the remaining chassis work,

01:34so the boot floor all needs fabricating yet.

01:38Fuel tank, we're doing a very large capacity fuel tank for doing reasonably long distances in Europe.

01:42We've been working on the floor pans.

01:44We've dropped those to get the seats as low as we can without compromising the ground clearance too much.

01:48We're using these JUX J40 seats, which we've used in a few projects, actually.

01:53They're great in this one because they replicate the shape of the original Aston seat reasonably closely,

01:58but give you electric adjustment.

02:01We are, of course, going to re-upholster these further down the line,

02:04and we're just gearing up for a client visit where they're going to sit in the car,

02:07and we do this with all the customers with our cars.

02:09We'll get them in the seat, get them to hold the steering wheel,

02:12and get pedals in the right position so they can adopt their favoured driving position.

02:17We'll then note down those positions, and then we can crack on and design the bulkhead

02:20with a view to getting the steering column through in the right place

02:24and the pedal box mounted in the right place

02:26so that their driving position is as comfortable as it can possibly be.