At the company's Bond Street, London
auction,
Bonham's will offer a
1964 Aston Martin DB5 that is possibly one the most British cars around. Not only is it an example of a classic British
sports car known for being driven by
James Bond, this exact car was purchased new by Sir Paul McCartney. And as an added bonus, it was also previously owned by
former Top Gear host Chris Evans.
According to Bonham's, McCartney ordered the car after The Beatles appeared on the
Ed Sullivan Show and after finishing the
Hard Day's Night movie. It was originally finished in blue with a black leather interior,
which you can see here. It came with a couple of nice touches for a musician, as well. It had a Philips Auto-Mignon automotive record player installed, one of which remains with the car. The auction company also mentions a
rumor that the leather had stitched-in musical notes. McCartney kept the car for about six years after buying it in 1964, and he seemed to have driven it a fair bit. When the clutch was replaced in 1970, the odometer read a bit over 40,000 miles, which is impressive considering how much traveling McCartney was surely doing with The Beatles.
The car changed hands a number of times in subsequent years. In 2002, it was restored and once again finished in blue with a black interior. It wasn't until its second restoration that started around 2012 and 2013 that the color scheme changed to silver with a dark red interior. That restoration wrapped up this year and included updates to the engine that increased displacement from 4.0 liters to 4.2 liters and upped compression. The results are an engine that jumped from 282 horsepower to 315 horsepower and from 280 pound-feet of torque to 305.
The car will be auctioned on December 2 at the Bond Street auction in
London. Bonham's predicts the car will go for between $1.6 million and $2 million. Interestingly, that's only a little above Hagerty Insurance's estimate of $1.4 million for a concours-quality DB5. It's also substantially more than
the roughly $500,000 this exact car sold for back in 2012.
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