‘As a 10-year-old I had sleepless nights after my dad came home talking about a £1500 DB6 for sale locally’
I fleetingly considered going into the classic car inspection business the other week. It would have taken me two full days of hard keyboard graft to earn what I was paid for poking around under an Aston DB6 on a ramp for an hour or two one Thursday morning in the Cotswolds – and this complete with free coffee and biscuits.
A friend of a friend in America had suddenly got the urge to own an Aston Martin, and was quite happy to go for a right-hooker if the car in question was as near-immaculate as makes no difference – as it needed to be at £272,000.
For comparison, I also found him a slightly cheaper privately owned one in retail red. Both had the usual massive and impressively laid-out history files, complete with heart-stopping ʻAston Taxʼ invoices (beautifully written, lots of zeroes) and all the ʻrightʼ modifications. Trying to appear knowledgeable, I dutifully inspected the infamous O-ring telltales in the sides of the block for any leaks (they were dry), but it was a struggle to find reasons not to buy either car.
Custodianship of a Lagonda Rapide cured me of the need to own an Aston long ago, yet I miss it and there is a little lad inside me who still, secretly, wants a car of the DB era. As a 10-year-old I had sleepless nights after my dad came home talking about a £1500 DB6 for sale locally. It was never captured, for reasons long forgotten, and dreams of becoming the junior 007 of Dane Bank were shattered for ever.
In my mindʼs eye that mystery DB6 was white, but I wouldnʼt have cared what colour it was had it turned up on our driveway. Some 45 years and a quarter of a million quid later you have a right to own a DB6 in any colour you want. So, when early reports from Charleston, SC, suggested the buyers didnʼt fancy a bright-red, private-sale Aston, I fully understood.
Owning a DB6 in the USA is not without its challenges, so my Americanʼs hesitation is hardly surprising. He had already formed the cynical view that all ʼ60s Astons needed fully restoring every 20 years. Seems a bit harsh, but the history files that come with good examples suggest there may be an element of truth to it.
Itʼs the engine that makes people nervous, and there was lots of talk of compression and leak-down tests. It seems marque expertise is a little thin on the ground Stateside and horrible things can be inflicted on them: my Aston guru Graham Millard
