The K500 insider’s guide to this year’s Aston Martin sale

Gently fluttering through the letterbox rather than arriving with a heavy thud!, Bonhams’ 2019 Aston sale catalogue is a slim tome with fewer cars and less automobilia than before – we take a look at this year’s offering.

Now in its second decade, the annual bash dedicated to all things Aston – this year on 19 May at Wormsley just outside London – is still associated with the Owners Club but, like last year, no longer held at Aston Martin Works in Newport Pagnell. We liked the ‘clubby’ atmosphere in 2018 and auctioneer James Knight’s breezy manner, but there’s no denying that the realignment in values since the peak of the market in 2013 and a move away from the marque’s spiritual home have had their effect: only 30-or-so cars this time against 48 six years ago and no £1m+ star lots.

Even the automobilia section – a profitable warm-up for the main event – is a shadow of its former self. Bonhams might well title it the ‘James Bond Sale’, for all the signed Connery photos and other 007 ephemera on offer.  

At a glance:

* 33 cars (2018, 36)
* Auction headliner: £680k to £750k 1963 DB4 Series V Convertible (pictured, top)
* Mid-estimate average £226.3k (2018, £200.75k)
* Number of cars at No Reserve: one (2018, nil)
* 113 lots of automobilia (2018, 154)
* One to watch: 1987 V8 Vantage X Pack (£320k to £360k). An original X Pack, great colours of Chichester Blue and Magnolia and a concours pot under its belt, what’s not – apart from the chunky estimate – to like?

The estimates are all over the place, from the well-priced cover car DB4C to the ambitious Fiesta Red (‘one of only 42’, for a reason…) left-hand-drive DB5 at £625k to £700k. Factor in a 10% premium for LHD, but deduct the inevitable work required post-sale, and the latter looks pricey.

Bond fans with spare change after binging on the automobilia will like the Silver Birch with black DB5 recently out of restoration. Purists, though, will lament the loss of the car’s original specification of Aegean Blue and White Gold hide – perhaps more of a plus in 2019 than 2013. A mid-estimate hammer of £650k plus Bonhams’ chunky premium (now 15% up to £500k) brings it in at £747.5k all-in, maybe £25k over retail. This one will be all about condition.

How far the DB4 Convertible’s Aston Martin Assured Provenance Gold Standard certificate cuts it in the saleroom is a matter of debate. It last sold at auction for £297,000 in June 2010, and is clearly in much finer fettle today, though its strident spec won’t appeal to all. Bonhams does not reveal if this is as delivered in 1963.

The rest of the 86-page (125 in 2013) catalogue includes the usual suspects: cars modified ‘to XXX specification’, a why-are-they-so-cheap? DB2, dealer entries and a wildly optimistic, limited-edition modern road car, this time a 2019 Vanquish Zagato Shooting Brake at £625k to £750k.

Almost at the close of the auction there’s a heavily updated 1993 ‘Works Special’ Virage Volante 6.3 (pictured, above), sold for £141.5k at the same event in 2016. With Vantage front and rear body panels by Aston Martin Works in period, the irresistible pull of the big 6.3 motor and a recent respray from in-your-face Gladiator Red to subtle Black Kirsch, at £150k to £180k this might be the one to take home.

The event has moved on from being  the  Aston Martin Sale to just an Aston Martin sale. Maybe it’s time to  move on altogether in 2020.

Photos by Bonhams