- the aston martin specialty firm nicholas mee & co. is selling the trio of mid-1960s aston martin vantage cars shown here, presenting them at the london concours this weekend.
- the three vantages include a coupe, a convertible, and the rarest of all, a shooting brake.
- the trio of astons will be sold as a package deal and could fetch more than $5 million.
here's an offer that even james bond himself would struggle to afford. britain's most famous secret agent has been issued an aston martin db5 at various points throughout his well-documented career. but although 007's cars received extensive, lethal modifications, he never got one of the ultra-rare vantage models, which received brawnier engines. nor did he get to drive either a convertible db5, or one of the very few shooting brake station wagons, in any of his cinematic outings.
but you can, if you have the small matter of $5.6 million to $7.8 million at current exchange rates—and space in one of your garages for a trio of original db5 vantages, one in each body style. the vantage coupe is rare enough, one of just 40 right-hand-drive examples to be built in period. the convertible is even less commonly spotted, being one of just five such vantages made. and the shooting brake is a genuine one-off, the only car that left the company's factory in newport pagnell with the combination of the longroof body—reportedly designed to accommodate chairman david brown's gun dogs and polo equipment—and the vantage upgrades. if that's not worth $7.8 million, then what is?
while vantage versions didn't get any chassis upgrades and will therefore drive with the same charming imprecision as the regular db5, they did receive more power thanks to the fitment of a high compression cylinder head and altered cam timing. this took the output of their six cylinder engines to 325 horsepower, a 43-hp improvement over the regular db5, and was claimed to cut the zero-to-6o-mph time to just 6.5 seconds. by the standards of the early sixties, those figures are at least as impressive as a 1000-hp output and a 2.0-second zero-to-hero would be these days.
the cars are being sold by nicholas mee & co., a well-known aston martin specialist in the u.k., and are described as having been freshly restored, so let's hope that anyone interested likes the colors they are finished in: caribbean pearl blue for the convertible, californian sage for the shooting brake, and—not especially original—bond-appropriate silver birch for the coupe. our favorite detail is actually on the wagon: look closely to see the twin wipers that sweep its sizable rear screen.
the cars will be shown together at the london concours event next week but will only be sold as a lot.