- A 1965 Aston Martin DB5 owned by the same family for over 50 years has been fully restored.
- Purchased for £900 in 1973, the factory-restored DB5 is now valued at up to £1 million (NZ$2.3 million).
- The right-hand-drive Vantage-engined DB5 is one of only 39 examples originally built in Silver Birch.
A teenage dream, parked for decades and nearly forgotten, has been brought back to life in the very place it was born.
Aston Martin Works has completed the full restoration of a 1965 DB5 owned by Welshman John Williams - more than 50 years after he first bought the car for £900.
Today, that same DB5 is valued at up to £1 million (NZ$2.3 million), a reminder that sometimes the best automotive investments come from passion, not prediction.
Bought young, kept forever
Williams was just 18 when he decided his dream car would be an Aston Martin DB5.
By 19, after saving hard and working overtime, he boarded a train from North Wales to London to inspect a 1965 example advertised in Motorsport magazine. The car, a Vantage-engined DB5 with Weber carburettors, wire wheels and electrically operated Sundym windows, proved irresistible.
He bought it for £900 in September 1973 and drove it daily for more than four years. The DB5 was only taken off the road in 1977, when Williams left for work in the Middle East. From there, time, weather and family life took their toll.
“Then… ‘life’ happened,” Williams said. “I’d had offers to buy her, and times when I could have done with the money, but I resisted.”
His wife Sue remembers the car’s long slumber less fondly. “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!”
Back to Newport Pagnell
Eventually, restoring the DB5 became a personal mission.
In late 2022, the Williams family entrusted the job to Aston Martin Works in Newport Pagnell, the marque’s historic home and the original birthplace of more than 13,000 cars.
Over the next three years, the car underwent a bare-metal restoration, with the Superleggera frame rebuilt and each aluminium body panel hand-formed.More than 2500 hours were spent across Aston Martin’s panel, paint, trim and heritage workshops.
Paul Spires, President of Aston Martin Works, said the challenge was welcomed. “Although the car was in a profoundly run-down condition when it arrived, we always relish a challenge… the car is now finished and, to my eye at least, looks absolutely stunning.”
One of the rarest DB5s
The Williams DB5 is among the most desirable specifications ever produced: a right-hand-drive 1965 saloon finished in Silver Birch with the higher-output Vantage engine.
Of the 1022 DB5s built, only 39 were made in this exact configuration.
Spires believes that rarity, combined with provenance, justifies the valuation, should the family ever sell.
For Williams, the reward is simpler. Seeing the finished classic car, he said: “It’s been a long time coming… but it’s been worth every penny. My girl’s back and up and running. Back to her former glory.”
