The Market

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£861k DB5 leads the way at lacklustre 2019 Aston Martin sale

£861k DB5 leads the way at lacklustre 2019 Aston Martin sale 20th May 2019

A hush descended on the Bonhams marquee when James Knight dropped the hammer on the annual all-Aston event’s first DB5, at £755,000. "The tent nearly ran out of oxygen!” he observed, as everyone took a deep lungful.

Has the market turned a corner? Judging by the rest of the sale, no; this was a blip, as the following DB5, a left-hander in its original shade of unfashionable Fiesta Red, reached £580k in the room but went home unsold. Both DB5s came after the cover star DB4 convertible was bid to £710k, just far enough into its £680k to £750k estimate to get the job done, helped along by Jamie’s trademark reminder: “It’s the only one I’ve got today”.

At a glance:

* Gross: £3,020,841 (2018, £4,374,861)
* Percentage sold by number: 39% (2018, 57%)
* Top-selling car: 1964 Aston Martin DB5, £860,600 gross, £755,000 net (est. £620k to £680k)
* Well sold? The DB5. Purists can carp about its fantasy ‘Bond spec’ but this was big money
* Well bought? Perhaps the red DB4C, a respray to BRG or grey would transform it, matters of originality notwithstanding
* One to take away? Maybe the modern V12 Vantage, at £66,700. One of the best recent cars from Gaydon for low-spec new Range Rover money

Since Aston Martin Works became too inflated with its own importance (and production of continuation retro models) to host auctions, Bonhams has hitched a ride with the travelling roadshow that is the AMOC annual jolly aka the Spring Concours, which this year landed at the discreet yet surprisingly spacious Wormsley Estate. Home to Garsington Opera, the Getty-owned spread on the edge of the Chilterns is accessed via a mile-long descending drive that, shorn of speed bumps, would make a fantastic hillclimb.

Would that the catalogue had been as impressive: a reflection on a slightly deflated market, with only 32 motor car lots (plus one tractor) and none of them truly big bucks. The last multi-million car Bonhams offered at this sale was DB3S/5 at AM Works in 2016, declared bid to £5m against a £6m to £7m estimate.


The DB5 (pictured, above) sold this time had been in receipt of a recent restoration, but so had the last one sold by Bonhams this March, a Vantage conversion at Goodwood for £636.6k all-in. A week previously, at another Oxfordshire country estate, a DB5 with a slightly older restoration failed to sell around the £600k mark, prompting pundits to suggest that henceforth “DB5 prices should start with a five”.

Two V8s attracted wildly different interest and prices, just showing what happens when more than one person wants the same car. First, a 1979 Series 4 ‘Oscar India’ with front brake upgrade inched up the bidding ladder in £2.5k increments from a £65k start to eventually hammer for £115k (£132.25k with premium). Three lots later a 1974 V8 saloon to Vantage spec, looking just as sharp bodily, did not sell, only attracting bids in the £60ks.

The sale kicked off with the traditional tractor, this time a 1960 990 Selectamatic at £13,800 and there was only one restoration project this year, the only automatic DB Mk III, though it was supplied with auto and manual boxes. Compared with the grenaded horrors that Bonhams has traditionally managed to unearth, this had all the heavy lifting done and looked as if it just needed painting and putting back together. It passed at £65k.

The Bond St team’s Aston sales always have a bit of a buzz to them – helped here by the presence of the Wriggly Monkey bar. Knight almost triggered a cardiac arrest when, after taking a bid on a DB Mk III (a convertible ‘chop’) of £200k, he held up proceedings for a painfully long pause while inviting the room to bid against “this very nice man”. He feinted a phantom £210k last-second offer before owning up and knocking it down amidst much mirth to the patient and rightful winning bidder. With less than a 40% sell-through rate, we needed a few laughs.

Bonhams at AMOC Wormsley Estate, 19 May 2019 (2018)

Gross: £3,020,841 (£4,374,861)
Number of cars not sold: 20 (15)
Number of cars withdrawn: 0 (1)
Total number of cars: 33 (35)
Number sold: 13 (20)
Percentage cars sold by number: 39% (57%)
Percentage by value average low/high estimate: 35% (54%)
Percentage of cars met or sold below low estimate: 15% (75%)
Percentage of cars sold below avge of estimates: 69% (85%)
Percentage of cars sold met/exceeded top estimate: 31% (5%)
Average year of cars offered: 1982 (1975)
Average price of cars sold: £232,372 (£218,743)
Percentage of cars offered at No Reserve: 3% (0%)

Photos by Paul Hardiman