00:00It is a very, very beautiful Aston Martin.
00:04Probably one of the best DB Mark III's in the world.
00:15My name's Nigel Woodward, I'm Managing Director here at Classic Motorcars and I'm sitting
00:20in front of this Aston Martin DB Mark III.
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
00:31to £40,000 and actually it sold for a little over £100,000.
00:34The 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 of
00:45work have gone into it.
00:46We have a very fixed process for restoring cars.
00:49There's the sort of historical research part right at the beginning of the process.
00:53Then we strip the car down to its component form, every last nut, bolt and washer.
00:57The body and the chassis are separated, they're cleansed of old paintwork 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
01:18or bonnet.
01:19They're a coach built car, handmade from aluminium and we've had to replicate much of that original
01:24coach work.
01:25It's the last of an era, it's the last of a coach built separate chassis Aston Martin.
01:30Aston Martin built 551 of these cars in the late 1950s.
01:34It has a W.O. Bentley designed engine.
01:37It's a wonderful thing to drive.
01:39Here we are in the cockpit.
01:41It feels like I'm sitting back in the late 1950s.
01:43The car's equipped with an umbrella handbrake as they're known.
01:46So a bit of a throwback there to the pre-war years.
01:49We've included a radio in the restoration.
01:51The car was actually supplied with a HMV radio when it was new, which would have been
01:54quite an unusual, luxurious addition to the car in 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.
02:05To get there we need to open this rather substantial bonnet catch.
02:10This has had a complete engine rebuild.
02:13Smooth running, sweet idle, gives good performance.
02:17It had a cast iron cylinder head originally.
02:20They were prone to cracking.
02:21This car's got a replacement.
02:23There's a number of things which are really satisfying points in the restoration of the car.
02:28I think the first time the engine starts.
02:35We do about 400-500 miles of testing in a car that we fully restore.
02:40Definitely one of the perks of the job, having the privilege of driving these lovely cars.
02:47Here's a nice tight roundabout.
02:49Power out of there.
02:52Oh, what a lovely thing.
02:59I think we can call the engine response, must speak.
03:04Falls away lovely.
03:05Its value today, I would put it something in excess of 400,000 pounds.
03:09It absolutely feels like a 400,000 pounds car.
03:11This car is recently completed.
03:14I'm looking forward to handing it over to the customer.
03:16He's going to end up with a very, very beautiful Aston Martin
03:20and probably one of the best DB Mark 3s in the world.
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