Aston Martin Works, the British brand’s heritage and restoration service, has completed an immense restoration project on a stunning DB5 that has been kept in the same family for over 50 years.
The DB5 is an unmistakeable icon in the car world, with its starring role in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger almost immediately cementing its legacy shortly after the car was released.
However, it was in 1973 that Welsh welder and garage owner John Williams purchased this example for £900 aged just 19.
The prior year, as an 18-year-old, he set himself the target of buying his dream car, and after conscientiously saving the equivalent of £15,000 in today’s money, he made the hours-long train journey from his home in North Wales to London to view and purchase the 1965 DB5 you see here.
Universally acknowledged to be the most desired specification of all DB5s, the car is a right-hand drive 1965 DB5 saloon with the sought-after Vantage engine. The original owner hailed from the St George’s Hill area of Surrey – a gated community that, at the time, was home to many celebrities including The Beatles’ John Lennon and Ringo Starr.
Purchased from an advertisement in Motorsport magazine, it came complete with Weber carburettors, wire wheels, and Sundym electrically operated windows, and “many bills”.
For the following four years, John proudly used the DB5 as his daily driver before leaving it parked up on the drivewayin 1977 after securing a job in the Middle East.
“Then… ‘life’ happened,” John explains. “I’d had offers to buy her, and times when I could have done with the money, but I resisted and, as Sue [John’s wife] said ‘you’ll never get another one’.”
Sue added: “The neighbours’ kids used to come round to play, and they’d play on her. Bouncing on the bonnet. One balanced on the exhaust pipe and snapped it off!”
However, as time went on, John set the goal of getting the DB5 restored to its former glory – especially feeling a sense of guilt about the state it had ended up in.
“As time went on it became a goal of mine to get her restored; to be able to drive her again. Being a garage man, I was a bit ashamed that I’d let her get into that state. I worked hard to buy her, and we’ve worked hard to get her repaired.”
John and Sue chose to go straight to the source by choosing Aston Martin Works in Newport Pagnell to complete the restoration. The heritage home of the marque and the place where over 13,000 of the most iconic Aston Martin sports cars were built over 50 years, the restoration process began at the facility in late 2022.
Three years after its arrival at the Works site, and after regular visits from the John and Sue Williams to track its progress, the bare metal restoration of the DB5 has been completed.
Repainted to its original Silver Birch colour, it’s one of only 39 right-hook examples originally finished in that shade with the Vantage engine, out of the 887 saloon examples.
In 2023, partway through the restoration process while each body panel was being uniquely shaped by hand, John noted that “it looks like an Aston Martin now”, even while it was still taking shape.
“I’m thrilled. It’s great to see all the old ways of building a car have been passed on, and younger people here are keeping up the tradition,” he added.
Two years after that, now that he can finally see the DB5 in fully restored form, John couldn’t be happier with how the Works team’s work turned out.
“Well, it’s been a long time coming, a long time saving, but it’s been worth every penny. It’s just amazing,” he says.
“It’s probably almost 50 years since I have driven this car, but the experience is phenomenal. It’s just… unbelievable. My girl’s back and up and running! Back to her former glory.”
The restoration of this iconinc car coincides with the 70th anniversary of Aston Martin’s Newport Pagnell site. Located in Buckinghamshire, around 13,000 cars were hand-built at the facility before production was moved Gaydon, Warwickshire, in 2007.
Today, Newport Pagnell resides as the brand’s world-renowned heritage service and restoration facility, as well as a showroom where it is possible to view, purchase, service, and restore cars from every era of the marque’s 112 years.
