A few weeks ago we featured an Aston Martin DB2/4 that had been found in a field. That Aston was in very rough shape, but was being sold for $79,000. Well this DB2/4 MK III is mostly original and ready to drive. It’s currently listed on eBay with a starting bid of $185,000 and a BIN of $235,000. This gives rise to the question of which is the better buy?

This car is without a doubt in better shape and is the more valuable MK III, plus that gun metal grey paint looks great, especially with the blacked out rims and grill. But is it really worth the asking price or even the starting bid? Well we discovered some interesting things about this car that may affect that decision.

At just a glance this car looks to be in original condition, as the seller claims it is. But is it really that original? Take a look at the A pillars. Do those red trim pieces match the rest of the black interior trim? If you take a look at the build sheet it says this car’s interior was red. As a matter of fact, the back seats are still in the original red, as are some of the harder to find trim pieces. We then had to ask ourselves what else could be off on this car.

Well we went over the image of the original build sheet and discovered that this car should be painted black. While we love this car in this gun metal grey, for $235k this car should at least be in its original color, if not original paint. We really do love this car, especially since it’s the more attractive aluminum bodied MK III, but at this price we would expect this car to be Concours level and it’s just nowhere near that level.

One of the few things that matched up on the build sheet is the engine. This is definitely the matching number engine for this car. The seller says the car has its British Motor Heritage Certificate and that this car runs great. They claim the engine was recently serviced and it looks to be really clean. We would still go over it really well and make sure all the pieces are there and are in working order. This car is powered by the DBA engine with twin SU carbs and the optional dual exhaust, this combination was claimed to produce 178 hp.

We really like the DB2/4s; they are just as attractive as their more expensive siblings and are solid performers. But we can’t help but ask if this asking price is a little too high for this car? If the original interior was in place then we could probably overlook the re-spray, but these things will keep this car from earning top dollar. This brings us back to our question of which would be the better buy, this running and rare MK III or the cheaper Mk II that’s in need of a complete restoration. Price aside, we think we would rather have this one and avoid the headache of a complete restoration. But for this to be a good buy the price is going to have to come down $20k or $30k to get it to a realistic price.