"This car can be viewed in person from 14th to 18th July 2020 at our the auction site, Windsorview Lakes, Datchet, SL3 9HY
The arrival of the DBS signified a real revolution at Aston Martin in the late 1960’s. British stylist William Towns, a, then junior, Aston Martin interior designer, penned a thoroughly modern GT design that has been celebrated ever since as one of the most elegant yet muscular shapes to emerge from the golden age of Sports GT motoring. The single-headlamp version of William Towns design was launched in 1972 and named ‘Vantage’ and retained the well proven, six-cylinder, 3,995cc, Tadek Marek engine. With only 70 examples built, it is now one of the rarest post-war Aston Martin models and the purest of the ‘single-headlamp’ Towns design that was to pilot Aston Martin through to the end of the 1980’s.
Aston Martin’s heritage department confirmed this car, AM/6050/RA, as one of the rare cars specified brand new with the five-Speed manual gearbox. Body colour ‘Tudor Green’ with ‘Natural’ leather. Supplied new in April 1973 by HWM Limited of Walton-on-Thames to Mr. Ronald Short, he sold the car in 1984 to Mr. Kevin Kelly who went on to own the car for close to 20 years during which time the colour was changed to red, in vogue during the late 1980’s.
Privately entered, our Weybridge based client purchased the car from a local owner in 2015 in partnership with his brother-in-law. Despite the car being in excellent unmolested condition (and fully numbers matching), they embarked on what became an obsessive mission to get the car back to its original and best after the Aston Martin Heritage department lent them an original 1973 colour swatch for exact paint matching. The history file contains several large reports and invoices from Martin Cheetham Race Engineering who ultimately fully rebuilt and balanced the engine, including new bearing and big end shells including constructing a replacement fuel tank to original specification and rebuilding the gearbox and linkages. All details are, of course, contained within the history file. Close to £50,000 has been invested overall into what was already an excellent car with the vast majority spent on the engine, brakes and transmission.
When you consider the scarcity of the early Vantage’s, the excellent condition of this car, the specialist engineering work invested in recent years and the even rarer (and highly desirable) specification of this particular car then this certainly is a collector’s item of some stature and deserving of close inspection.
The health and safety of both our customers and team remains the utmost priority, we are therefore operating to Government guidelines throughout viewing and auction day."