I wish I could go to the Silverstone auction in Northamptonshire, UK coming up towards the end of the month and not just because I’d love to go see this history track, but to see the two incredible barn finds that are going to be crossing the auction block on May 20th! This Aston Martin DBS is one of the two barn finds that will be auctioned that day and it looks to be an amazing find. It has been in storage since 1986 and has just 30k miles on the clock. You can read more about it here at Silverstone Auctions. The other find is a Ford Sierra RS Cosworth and you can read more about that one below!
Before we get to the Ford, let’s take a closer look at this Aston Martin. It isn’t everyday that someone finds an Aston parked in a barn, admittedly finding a DBS isn’t quite as special as finding an earlier model like a DB5. This is still an amazing find nonetheless and I know I would be extremely happy to have it! The auction house claims it is in solid shape and that is is mostly original, but they admit the condition of the mechanical systems is unknown. That could be a big problem, but if the car really only has 30k miles on it, it seems unlikely that anything is beyond repair.
If the DBS isn’t quite your style, maybe this 1986 Ford Sierra RS Cosworth will catch you attention, as this is one Ford product that never touched our shores. These hot little cars gained international fame for their racing abilities. This example might just be the lowest mileage example out there, with just 6k miles on the dial! That’s pretty impressive for a car that was known to be an absolute blast to drive.
The story goes that this car was delivered to a Ford dealership, that actually put it in storage. It was there for 3 years and then went to the second owner who liked to show it and put 6,003 miles on it before selling it to the current owner. Rather than drive it, the third owner parked it in their barn and that’s where it has stayed ever since! At this point, it likely needs a tune up and a good cleaning, but it looks to be in amazing shape. With so few of miles it should! So if you always dreamt of owning of these icons, but never had the chance, here is your opportunity to see what they felt like back in ’86.
While I sure would love to see both of these find in person, I’ll just have to look at all the great photos and dream! If one of you happens to be attending the auction, we sure would love to hear about it. So which of these barn finds would you want to take home? Or would you want both? Special thanks to our friends over at BoldRide for this tip!
Two neat cars. But I have to wonder why an auction house would take and present such dimly lit pictures, unless it’s intentionally done to hide something. The rocker on the left side of the Aston looks scary.
Dimly lit is how you make a multi million pound castle look like a barn.
I agree with Van. I am certain that the lighting in their photos is Exactly the way they want it, and probably cost hundreds of pounds extra from the best photographer they could find. Good, bright lighting has viewers saying things like “nice car, but I wonder if that Coke machine in the background is for sale??” or “That’s not a barn! That’s a metal prefab pole building!??”…etc. The shadows add to the mystique!
The Aston has automatic and RHD. Both deal breakers for me.
Correct me if I am wrong but wasn’t the Merkur XR4Ti a by product of this Ford Sierra RS Cosworth? Sure looks like it. I flipped one a long time ago and I think it was a 4cly turbo 5 sp. Wonder what the Aston Martin DBS will bring. Sure is a nice find.
The Aston will take a lot of work everywhere to bring it up to the condition where Aston fans will want to buy it. For it to have good value the work will need to be done by a reputable shop that specializes in Astons, preferably the A.M. works, and that will be very expensive. It probably needs bodywork, and then paint, mechanical, a new interior, with the suspension and all the systems redone along the way.
It won’t work financially because the 6 cylinder DBS is one of the two lowest valued Astons up through the 1970s at only $110K according to the SCM Guide, and that won’t cover the purchase price and all the work that has to be done. There’s a reason why this car sat like it did for so long, and it’s the fact that it would cost about as much to restore as one of the really valuable early DB cars, but would have only a fraction of the value in the end.
This auction house usually features its most needy high-end vintage cars in the best possible light—i.e., with hardly any light at all, just a weak spotlight to make it look mysterious and interesting. Once the buyer gets the final bill it will seem a lot less mysterious and interesting, unfortunately.
OTOH the Sierra Cosworth is a far more desirable car for the likely price. That’s the one I would be interested in.
Two Aston DBS stories; First – about 30 years ago a local restoration shop was repairing some collision damage to a DBS. They wrote to the factory to ask for the frame specifications. By return mail they received a long cardboard tube from England. The note said “Here’s the blueprints with the specifications you need. Please mail them back when you’re done as they’re the only copy we have.”
Second, from about 15 years ago, a friend of mine who knew very little about Aston Martin history saw a 1968 or 69 RHD Automatic DBS in deplorable condition on eBay in Everett, Washinton, but it was “only” $15,000 so he bought it instantly (He had done a google search on DBS and found the race cars from the 1950s and at the time they were worth over a million so he thought he’d made quite a score!!
This in itself is funny enough, but I went with him to drive the car back. What we found when we got there was more a “semi-reasonable” facsimile of a RHD automatic DBS consisting primarily of bondo and fiberglass. It was the worst, rusty, worthless example of what had at one time been an Aston-Martin that I’ve ever seen! Nonetheless my friend was a gentleman and because he had hit the “Buy-it-Now” button on eBay he felt compelled to hand over his cashier’s check for this pile of s……t.
He wanted to drive it all the way back to Portland but after about 50 miles and two quarts of oil (yes, this leaked worse than the Exxon Valdez) he wanted out. The classic twin-cam Aston engine was positively screaming at a modest 55 mph because the three-speed automatic was by now only a two-speed with top gear missing in action.
So I drove it the rest of the way, stopping every 50 miles to pour in more oil.
He brought it to a ‘shade-tree’ mechanic working out in the woods out of a double-wide mobile home down some unnamed logging road in Columbia county in rural Oregon and left it there.
A couple of years later I asked how the Aston was coming along – it turned out he’d forgotten about the car so he dialed the mechanic’s number. Disconnected. No Longer in Service. D.O.A.
So we drove out to the woods hoping to find the mobile home. No luck, couldn’t remember which unnamed logging road it was. So after a while of looking he simply gave up.
Maybe five years went by, maybe more, maybe less, I don’t know, at the time it didn’t seem important for me to remember so I didn’t, but when the Aston seemed lost forever, one day my friend receives a registered letter from an impound lot that the Aston is to be sold to satisfy a lien of only a couple thousand dollars. By this time he was thoroughly through with the car and never responded. So somebody bought an Aston, or at least what was left of an Aston, or what used to be an Aston-Martin, however you want to define it for cheap.
And no, the story isn’t over – a while ago this very same Aston showed up in the inventory of our good friends who run the Beverly Hills Hair Club (which of course is neither a car club nor in Beverly Hills, but let’s not get picky.) It was now minus the engine (perhaps the only chunk of metal with any sort of value) but with an absolutely ridiculous asking price north of fifty grand! But my friend had passed away sometime before so he never saw his abandoned junker offered at such a ludicrous price. I wonder what the Beverly Hills Hair Club boys ever got for it???
Brakeservo- the shop you are talking about is about 3 miles up Logic Trail. Not quite to Columbia county but very close to the line on highway 30. It’s still there, although the name escapes me. He specializes mostly in VW and Fiats.
*Logie Trail
Thank you Grant, but I don’t think you’re talking about the same guy, the guy my friend dealt with was named Keith and he was definitely in Columbia County outside of Scappoose. When I first met him in about 1995 had a shop specializing in British sports cars in NW Portland on Burnside. He had a wife, a well-known rallyist (therefore I won’t repeat her name) who was assembling a twin-cam XK Jag cylinder head the first time I met her! I’m sure other long-time Portland sports car people from “way back” will know exactly who I’m talking about. It was too bad, he apparently suffered a head injury when he rolled a local attorney’s sports car and never seemed to be quite the same. Hey Satch Carlson – do you read this?? I’m sure you know who I’m talking about! Still, it was a sad end to my friend’s Aston-Martin ownership experience.
Beverly Hills car club sells a few interesting cars. And some are still restorable. Many make good yard art. California is known for rust free cars. At BHCC that means they don’t charge extra for the rust.
An Aston DBS 6 is on the way up in England. At prices over £200000 they are very much a good investment even if you have to get it restored.
Sierra Cosworth was an Absolute Legend in European Touring Cars at the time it was so undefeatable that eventually the FIA changed the rules to outlaw them (Exactly the same as what happened to the Audi A4 quattro & also the R-32 Skylines) here’s a short video of the Bathurst 1000 winning car! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPcW6a3HvLA&sns=em