Classic Aston Martin auction prices continue upward spiral

29 Jul 2011

By now everyone is used to the traditionally top end prices paid at Bonhams annual May auction at Aston Martin Works Service. Prime examples this year were £254,000 paid for a DB4 Series 1, £227,000 for a DB2/4 Mark II Drop-head Coupe, £430,500 for one of 12 Harold Radford-converted DB5 Shooting Brakes, and a promising £106,000 for a DBS converted to Vantage specification and restored by Works Service. Then there were the ‘barn finds’ in need of total restoration, including a DB Mark III coupe at £54,300, a DB5 coupe at £282,000, and £309,500 for a Series V DB4 Convertible, alongside a concours d’elegance-winning similar series example at £507,500, two of just 70 Series IV and V models built; in comparison, a brace of the 140 DB6 Volantes produced, one with automatic transmission and one with manual gearbox, hot on the heels of Kate Middleton and Prince William using his father’s Mark 2 Vantage version to leave Buckingham Palace after their April wedding, each sold for £232,500.

That classic Aston Martin prices seem ever on the increase was further demonstrated by the amazing €282,152 paid for a DB6 Vantage coupe at Artcurial’s mid-June auction in Paris, followed at RM Auctions sale at Salon Prive a week later by another DB4 Convertible, a Series IV with Vantage engine, in reasonably good condition, albeit once owned by Sir Peter Ustinov, at £431,200, and a DB4 Series IV Vantage coupé at £274,500. Next there was Historic Auctions mid-July event at Brooklands Museum where a replica DB4GT Zagato, despite strangely being based on a DBS floor-pan and running gear, raised £155,100. This was followed by Bonhams auction at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where another ‘barn find’ DB5 coupe sold for £254,500, a DB6 Volante, upgraded to Vantage engine specification, made £309,500, while a DB4 Series II coupe fetched £188,500. Most recently, at Silverstone Auctions inaugural motor car sale at the Silverstone Classic last weekend, a fully restored DB4 Series IV coupe made £187,000 and an un-restored Series II model in good mechanical condition £110,000.

All excellent prices, some extraordinary, that will be music to the ears of those fortunate enough to own such Aston Martins. Clearly the appetite for these classic machines remains undiminished – let’s just hope that not too much of it is speculator driven, as in the late 1980s, artificially forcing up prices to a level exclusive to those only with the very deepest of pockets.