Classic Aston Martin V8's
Discussion
Hi OP
You do realise that you are living my dream. I've lusted after one of these proper Astons since seeing David Ellis spank various serious exotica at Oulton Park, Donnington etc.
Unfortunately for me prices are way too high now so I'll have to make do with your updates. Keep them coming please
You do realise that you are living my dream. I've lusted after one of these proper Astons since seeing David Ellis spank various serious exotica at Oulton Park, Donnington etc.
Unfortunately for me prices are way too high now so I'll have to make do with your updates. Keep them coming please
I'm really pleased everyone is enjoying the thread, it helps ease the pain!
It was hard selling the DBS V8 without experiencing the new and improved version but at the time it seemed the right thing to do. I had moved from London to rural Devon (near the sea) and the car would not have looked that nice for long down here. It was a wrench selling but needs must. If prices had stayed at the level I paid for it then I would, in all likelihood, have kept hold of it. I wish in many ways prices had stayed low and we had not experienced the boom. As soon as something become valuable, it does take a little of the joy out of it.
There are lots of updates to come, but please bear with me as I have to upload all the photos and then link to here.
It was hard selling the DBS V8 without experiencing the new and improved version but at the time it seemed the right thing to do. I had moved from London to rural Devon (near the sea) and the car would not have looked that nice for long down here. It was a wrench selling but needs must. If prices had stayed at the level I paid for it then I would, in all likelihood, have kept hold of it. I wish in many ways prices had stayed low and we had not experienced the boom. As soon as something become valuable, it does take a little of the joy out of it.
There are lots of updates to come, but please bear with me as I have to upload all the photos and then link to here.
williamp said:
Fantastic. Here was mine:
Hi Will, we met very briefly at one of the DBS V8 days at Gaydon when yours was red. This must have been 2005 or 2006?So the first thing to do when I got the van home was to unload everything into the Carcoon Veloce I had bought. My barn/garage isn’t the driest and so this would be a much better environment to store things. Once everything was in, the next task was to go through all the boxes and come up with a list of what was there and what was missing.
I knew, when taking on a project like this, that there was bound to be a lot of parts to acquire but I was pleasantly surprised that it was not as bad as I feared. There were inevitably parts missing but by and large it was pretty complete.
The main problem areas related to parts specific to the LHD conversion and that nothing from the original RHD spec of the car had been retained.
The LHD steering rack was missing as was a lot of the parts for the dash board. While it is my intention to make the car RHD those LHD parts would have been useful to sell. It also meant any thoughts of keeping it LHD for the sake of ease were dispelled – there was also abit of man maths again as LHD Astons seem to be worth more than RHD due to rarity.
The LHD steering rack is worth thousands, clearly someone along the way realised the same and sold it! The pedal box and pedals were also conspicuous by their absence.
Inside, in an attempt to maintain the Oscar India look of the car, a previous owner had tried to make the dash look later by using after market gauges and dash panel. Again, they had not retained the original parts… The LHD dash top was missing also.
None of these were an issue now, but it was best to be prepared so I could start searching for all the missing parts while the bodywork was being worked on.
Of more immediate concern was how to get the engine out of the van! It had gone in at the vendor’s workshop with a big engine hoist through the side door and then I had strapped it down.
But I didn’t have an engine hoist at home..... I looked into hiring one but they all seemed fairly light weight and I was not convinced they were up to the job of lifting such a heavy engine.
What I did have though was a neighbour who ran a plant hire company and had scalpel like precision with a mini digger.
Job done!
I knew, when taking on a project like this, that there was bound to be a lot of parts to acquire but I was pleasantly surprised that it was not as bad as I feared. There were inevitably parts missing but by and large it was pretty complete.
The main problem areas related to parts specific to the LHD conversion and that nothing from the original RHD spec of the car had been retained.
The LHD steering rack was missing as was a lot of the parts for the dash board. While it is my intention to make the car RHD those LHD parts would have been useful to sell. It also meant any thoughts of keeping it LHD for the sake of ease were dispelled – there was also abit of man maths again as LHD Astons seem to be worth more than RHD due to rarity.
The LHD steering rack is worth thousands, clearly someone along the way realised the same and sold it! The pedal box and pedals were also conspicuous by their absence.
Inside, in an attempt to maintain the Oscar India look of the car, a previous owner had tried to make the dash look later by using after market gauges and dash panel. Again, they had not retained the original parts… The LHD dash top was missing also.
None of these were an issue now, but it was best to be prepared so I could start searching for all the missing parts while the bodywork was being worked on.
Of more immediate concern was how to get the engine out of the van! It had gone in at the vendor’s workshop with a big engine hoist through the side door and then I had strapped it down.
But I didn’t have an engine hoist at home..... I looked into hiring one but they all seemed fairly light weight and I was not convinced they were up to the job of lifting such a heavy engine.
What I did have though was a neighbour who ran a plant hire company and had scalpel like precision with a mini digger.
Job done!
Fantastic! Anh Hi too!
Also, for those who are interested there is an old blog about restoring the V8. Including the amount of rust they have!
http://www.aston-v8.co.uk
Also, for those who are interested there is an old blog about restoring the V8. Including the amount of rust they have!
http://www.aston-v8.co.uk
I will try to get the next update done tonight. Sorry for the delay, I was distracted by that fantastic thread where the chap is putting a M5 V10 into a Capri!
The threads so far take us upto mid-way through 2015. The updates from now on will concern the actual work we have done to the car, and various parts I have acquired from a number of sources.
The threads so far take us upto mid-way through 2015. The updates from now on will concern the actual work we have done to the car, and various parts I have acquired from a number of sources.
With the shell back at the body shop, the first decision that had to be made with the car related to the incorrect flip tail rear that had been created at some point in its past to make it look like a later car.
Now my favourite all time Aston is a late eighties V8 Vantage X-pack so I do love the flip tail look. But I cannot afford one of these and trying to make an early car look like a late one does not feel right.
Here, from Tim Cottingham’s excellent website (www.astonmartins.com) is a photo clearly showing the early and later style rears for the V8.
With the value of the early cars climbing, I decided to remove the fliptail and go back to what should be original for the car.
Besides, keeping it and making it a correct fliptail would have entailed further work as the later cars with the fliptail had the reversing lights in the main cluster while on the earlier cars they were located lower down in the rear valence (see photo above). You can see from the photo below of my shell that whoever did the work had kept the holes correct for the early car and not allowed for the extra holes needed for the reversing lights.
Once this decision had been made, there was immediately another one to be taken! The way the flip tail on my car had been created was by adding in additional metal to build up the height. Here are some photos taken inside the boot of mine looking up at the work that had been done.
To return it to original we could either unpick this work and then weld it back to standard or we could look for an entire rear section from another car. We would then cut off the rear of mine and weld in the replacement.
In July 2015, I saw an advert for an auction local to me in Devon that was selling off a number of cars at the owner’s house. All were in fairly poor condition but among the lots was a complete blue Aston Martin DBS and also a red DBS shell. If the price was right, this could be an option.
I went along to the auction and registered to bid. It was being run by a local auction company who, it turned out, was owned by the parents of a girl in my son's class! So I had a chat with them to find out the background.
All the lots are the property of one man who is very wealthy and has quite a collection. The auction was mostly for the rubbish he didn't want anymore. Most of the lots were either projects or not in great condition. Having said that, I was hoping that the location in deepest darkest Devon and lack of awareness of the auction (they don't usually run classic car auctions) may throw up some bargains... The red shell was being sold without a reserve and the blue DBS had an estimate of £6,000 to £7,000.
On viewing the red shell, it was clear that it was in a pretty bad way and I decided we are better off trying to repair mine, unless it went for a ridiculous price. We knew it would cost approx. £2,400.00 to do the work to my shell so unless it was very cheap it would not be worth it considering the amount of work the red shell needed. I would also have to factor in transportation costs. Here’s what it looked like:
The blue DBS was interesting and I intended to see what happened with the bidding. It had clearly been stored for some time and was in need of a restoration. It was missing it's original engine and was instead fitted with a 4.2 Jaguar engine. This would clearly effect the value as the engines are an important part of an Aston but they do come up for sale from time to time.
What was strange was that the owner had gone to extreme lengths to make it hard to identify the car. The VIN plates were missing and there was no paperwork with the car, not to mention the incorrect engine meant no engine number. I couldn’t understand why someone would do that as any history with a car like this could only add to the value. It would not have been too hard to find the identity as old Astons will usually have the chassis number written in crayon on the inside of a lot of the trim pieces, but it wasn't possible at the auction. There should also be a chassis number stamped on one of the chassis cross members but I was unable to locate it.
It was too good to cut up for mine but I thought it could be worth buying, tracing the id and then selling on at another auction. It was a risk, but the car was a worthwhile project. I didn't get many pics of the blue DBS, but here's what I have:
At the auction the red shell went for £3074 (inc commission) and the blue car went for £17,490 (inc commission).
Both bought by the same man who looked to be a wealthy enthusiast as opposed to a dealer. He probably would have gone a lot higher as he was very agrressive in his bidding, but there was no real appetite for the projects in the room. They were certainly too rich for me. The red shell was in really bad shape and £17.5k for a DBS without it's engine, no paperwork and question marks over it's identity didn't seem a bargain. Having said that, a few days later a complete DBS project (with the correct but non-running engine) sold for £60k at a Brightwells auction....
I also managed to keep my hand down for a rather sad looking Mercedes 450 SEL 6.9 with a lot of rot, that again went for more than I thought it was worth. There were few bargains at this auction so the vendor must have been happy!
I chased up another early V8 rear end that someone I knew had sold to a man who raced a V8 in the AMOC championship but he wanted to hold onto it in case he damaged his car racing.
So at that point I decided it was better the devil you know and it would make more sense to repair what we had rather than waiting until another rear turned up (who knows when that would happen). This meant we could get started on the car.
I purchased a good condition used bootlid from Puddleduck Parts, a company who used to be the source for used Aston Parts but were now in the process of closing down. This would give us the line to work to when reducing the height of the rear wings.
Now my favourite all time Aston is a late eighties V8 Vantage X-pack so I do love the flip tail look. But I cannot afford one of these and trying to make an early car look like a late one does not feel right.
Here, from Tim Cottingham’s excellent website (www.astonmartins.com) is a photo clearly showing the early and later style rears for the V8.
With the value of the early cars climbing, I decided to remove the fliptail and go back to what should be original for the car.
Besides, keeping it and making it a correct fliptail would have entailed further work as the later cars with the fliptail had the reversing lights in the main cluster while on the earlier cars they were located lower down in the rear valence (see photo above). You can see from the photo below of my shell that whoever did the work had kept the holes correct for the early car and not allowed for the extra holes needed for the reversing lights.
Once this decision had been made, there was immediately another one to be taken! The way the flip tail on my car had been created was by adding in additional metal to build up the height. Here are some photos taken inside the boot of mine looking up at the work that had been done.
To return it to original we could either unpick this work and then weld it back to standard or we could look for an entire rear section from another car. We would then cut off the rear of mine and weld in the replacement.
In July 2015, I saw an advert for an auction local to me in Devon that was selling off a number of cars at the owner’s house. All were in fairly poor condition but among the lots was a complete blue Aston Martin DBS and also a red DBS shell. If the price was right, this could be an option.
I went along to the auction and registered to bid. It was being run by a local auction company who, it turned out, was owned by the parents of a girl in my son's class! So I had a chat with them to find out the background.
All the lots are the property of one man who is very wealthy and has quite a collection. The auction was mostly for the rubbish he didn't want anymore. Most of the lots were either projects or not in great condition. Having said that, I was hoping that the location in deepest darkest Devon and lack of awareness of the auction (they don't usually run classic car auctions) may throw up some bargains... The red shell was being sold without a reserve and the blue DBS had an estimate of £6,000 to £7,000.
On viewing the red shell, it was clear that it was in a pretty bad way and I decided we are better off trying to repair mine, unless it went for a ridiculous price. We knew it would cost approx. £2,400.00 to do the work to my shell so unless it was very cheap it would not be worth it considering the amount of work the red shell needed. I would also have to factor in transportation costs. Here’s what it looked like:
The blue DBS was interesting and I intended to see what happened with the bidding. It had clearly been stored for some time and was in need of a restoration. It was missing it's original engine and was instead fitted with a 4.2 Jaguar engine. This would clearly effect the value as the engines are an important part of an Aston but they do come up for sale from time to time.
What was strange was that the owner had gone to extreme lengths to make it hard to identify the car. The VIN plates were missing and there was no paperwork with the car, not to mention the incorrect engine meant no engine number. I couldn’t understand why someone would do that as any history with a car like this could only add to the value. It would not have been too hard to find the identity as old Astons will usually have the chassis number written in crayon on the inside of a lot of the trim pieces, but it wasn't possible at the auction. There should also be a chassis number stamped on one of the chassis cross members but I was unable to locate it.
It was too good to cut up for mine but I thought it could be worth buying, tracing the id and then selling on at another auction. It was a risk, but the car was a worthwhile project. I didn't get many pics of the blue DBS, but here's what I have:
At the auction the red shell went for £3074 (inc commission) and the blue car went for £17,490 (inc commission).
Both bought by the same man who looked to be a wealthy enthusiast as opposed to a dealer. He probably would have gone a lot higher as he was very agrressive in his bidding, but there was no real appetite for the projects in the room. They were certainly too rich for me. The red shell was in really bad shape and £17.5k for a DBS without it's engine, no paperwork and question marks over it's identity didn't seem a bargain. Having said that, a few days later a complete DBS project (with the correct but non-running engine) sold for £60k at a Brightwells auction....
I also managed to keep my hand down for a rather sad looking Mercedes 450 SEL 6.9 with a lot of rot, that again went for more than I thought it was worth. There were few bargains at this auction so the vendor must have been happy!
I chased up another early V8 rear end that someone I knew had sold to a man who raced a V8 in the AMOC championship but he wanted to hold onto it in case he damaged his car racing.
So at that point I decided it was better the devil you know and it would make more sense to repair what we had rather than waiting until another rear turned up (who knows when that would happen). This meant we could get started on the car.
I purchased a good condition used bootlid from Puddleduck Parts, a company who used to be the source for used Aston Parts but were now in the process of closing down. This would give us the line to work to when reducing the height of the rear wings.
CQ8 said:
Both bought by the same man who looked to be a wealthy enthusiast as opposed to a dealer. He probably would have gone a lot higher as he was very agrressive in his bidding, but there was no real appetite for the projects in the room. They were certainly too rich for me. The red shell was in really bad shape and £17.5k for a DBS without it's engine, no paperwork and question marks over it's identity didn't seem a bargain.
You know what they say about a fool and his money...! At the beginning of this thread, I talked about how one of the changes I had wanted to make to my DBS V8 was to replace the automatic gearbox with a manual.
The new 1972 car came with the same 3 speed auto Chrysler Torqueflite gearbox as my DBS V8:
By chance, when I was negotiating the purchase of the car itself, there was an original and full refurbished ZF manual gearbox being sold by an AMOC member on eBay. It was on for £12k but did not sell so I contacted him and, when I had complete the purchase of the car, we agreed a deal at £10k. A lot of money for a gearbox but they rarely come up and this was a key part of my restoration. The deal included the propshaft (which I was missing) and other parts. I could have gone for an aftermarket transmission, such as a Tremec, but these are no cheaper and I wanted to have something that was correct for the car even if the shift wasn't quite as slick.
When I went to collect the gearbox, it turned out the seller had converted several early V8 road cars into race cars over the years and had boxes of all the parts he had stripped out just sitting around in his garage!
So from him I was able to buy excellent used examples of all the gauges, dash panels, A-post trim panels with switches, centre console, clock panel with electric window switches, under dash panels as well as numerous other interior bits. Basically a whole load of the parts I was missing were right here! This saved an enormous amount of time and money tracking all these bits down.
I also bought a very good condition front valance, as mine was missing, and rear valances (they're made up of three parts- left, right and cetnre) as mine were in very poor condition.
A very useful haul indeed! With the rise in prices of these cars, and the fact that they were made in very small numbers to begin with, means that finding second hand parts is becoming harder and harder so I was very lucky with this find.
I flogged the Torqueflite on EBay to a really nice guy. I had no idea what condition it was in as I'd never used it but he was happy with the deal. They're not rare and are fitted to loads of Dodge/Chrysler vehicles, not to mention the Jenson Interceptor. There's one on Ebay right now where the vendor is listing it as an Aston part and asking £1,850, needless to say it has been on sale for some time...
A short while after this discovery, an advertisement appeared in the classified section of the monthly AMOC newletter from a member clearing out a small number of parts. The ad had been placed by someone who had done some jobs on my DBS V8 for me in my first year of ownership, so it was great to make contact again after 10 years. Among the parts he was selling was a reconditioned RHD steering rack, a deal was done and the part arrived a few days later and was in excellent condition. Another difficult to find part ticked off the list.
The Aston world is a very small one and everyone I have spoken to has been incredibly helpful. I have acquired most of the missing big ticket items and I'm sure I'll be able to get any remaining parts via the numerous specialists parts supplies or even Works Service.
My next update will start detailing the restoration work that has begun on the car....
The new 1972 car came with the same 3 speed auto Chrysler Torqueflite gearbox as my DBS V8:
By chance, when I was negotiating the purchase of the car itself, there was an original and full refurbished ZF manual gearbox being sold by an AMOC member on eBay. It was on for £12k but did not sell so I contacted him and, when I had complete the purchase of the car, we agreed a deal at £10k. A lot of money for a gearbox but they rarely come up and this was a key part of my restoration. The deal included the propshaft (which I was missing) and other parts. I could have gone for an aftermarket transmission, such as a Tremec, but these are no cheaper and I wanted to have something that was correct for the car even if the shift wasn't quite as slick.
When I went to collect the gearbox, it turned out the seller had converted several early V8 road cars into race cars over the years and had boxes of all the parts he had stripped out just sitting around in his garage!
So from him I was able to buy excellent used examples of all the gauges, dash panels, A-post trim panels with switches, centre console, clock panel with electric window switches, under dash panels as well as numerous other interior bits. Basically a whole load of the parts I was missing were right here! This saved an enormous amount of time and money tracking all these bits down.
I also bought a very good condition front valance, as mine was missing, and rear valances (they're made up of three parts- left, right and cetnre) as mine were in very poor condition.
A very useful haul indeed! With the rise in prices of these cars, and the fact that they were made in very small numbers to begin with, means that finding second hand parts is becoming harder and harder so I was very lucky with this find.
I flogged the Torqueflite on EBay to a really nice guy. I had no idea what condition it was in as I'd never used it but he was happy with the deal. They're not rare and are fitted to loads of Dodge/Chrysler vehicles, not to mention the Jenson Interceptor. There's one on Ebay right now where the vendor is listing it as an Aston part and asking £1,850, needless to say it has been on sale for some time...
A short while after this discovery, an advertisement appeared in the classified section of the monthly AMOC newletter from a member clearing out a small number of parts. The ad had been placed by someone who had done some jobs on my DBS V8 for me in my first year of ownership, so it was great to make contact again after 10 years. Among the parts he was selling was a reconditioned RHD steering rack, a deal was done and the part arrived a few days later and was in excellent condition. Another difficult to find part ticked off the list.
The Aston world is a very small one and everyone I have spoken to has been incredibly helpful. I have acquired most of the missing big ticket items and I'm sure I'll be able to get any remaining parts via the numerous specialists parts supplies or even Works Service.
My next update will start detailing the restoration work that has begun on the car....
December 2015
Inner sill: Given the poor condition of the old inner sill, we decided the best course of action would be to completely replace it and start with new material. This was to be a good decision as the old sections had been previously repaired poorly.
OS Out-rigger: As the project came with some new members replacing them required little thought. The original member although looked fine, initially, the size was in-correct and the shape where it joined the sill was completely wrong so replacing was inevitable.
Outrigger to chassis location: quite often where this member joins the main chassis rail, there is some corrosion but on this occasion it was corroded right through requiring the inner side section repairing too. This was not obvious from the outside only a small rusty pin hole could be see engine side.
Note the welds are not fully completed just tacks in places.
This photo shows the rear of the car where work has started to bring the rear back to original.The second hand boot lid is in place and you can see where we have started to unpick the metal.
Inner sill: Given the poor condition of the old inner sill, we decided the best course of action would be to completely replace it and start with new material. This was to be a good decision as the old sections had been previously repaired poorly.
OS Out-rigger: As the project came with some new members replacing them required little thought. The original member although looked fine, initially, the size was in-correct and the shape where it joined the sill was completely wrong so replacing was inevitable.
Outrigger to chassis location: quite often where this member joins the main chassis rail, there is some corrosion but on this occasion it was corroded right through requiring the inner side section repairing too. This was not obvious from the outside only a small rusty pin hole could be see engine side.
Note the welds are not fully completed just tacks in places.
This photo shows the rear of the car where work has started to bring the rear back to original.The second hand boot lid is in place and you can see where we have started to unpick the metal.
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