u/Maynard078

John's car was no ordinary DB5, mind you (as if there is such a thing), but was, rather, the Vantage-engined model complete with Weber carburetors, wire wheels, Sundym electrically operated windows, and, according to the advertisement found in the back of Motorsport magazine, “many bills.”

This proved to be the siren call for John, and he made the long trek via train from his home in North Wales to London to have a look, whereupon he was summarily impressed: He acquired the car for £900. It may sound like a pittance today but rolling back the clock can be a bit more sobering: That would be more than £15,000 in today's coin of the realm.

Okay, yes, that's still a pittance.

John was rightly chuffed to use the DB5 as his daily driver for many years, only mothballing the car on his driveway when a lucrative assignment in the Middle East came calling in 1977. And therein the seeds of rot began to take hold.

"Life happened," as John summarized, circumstances which are familiar to all. "I’d had offers to buy her, and there were times when I could have done with the money, but I resisted and, as Sue [John’s wife] said, ‘you’ll never get another one’.”

An "attractive nuisance," as the legal beagles are wont to say, Sue chimed in, noting that “...the neighbors’ kids used to come round to play, and they’d play on her. Bouncing on the bonnet. One balanced on the exhaust pipe and snapped it off!”

With decades of seeing it shoved to a corner or underfoot or simply laying about, John came to a conclusion: Following a long career as a successful welder and "garage man," he was ashamed that he had let his prized possession deteriorate. He had, he said, worked hard to buy her. It was now time to work hard to get her repaired.

To that end, Williams saved up around £400,000 ($530,000) to have the DB5 rebuilt by the Aston Martin Works in Newport Pagnell, the heritage home of the marque where more than 13,000 of the most iconic Aston Martins were built over the firm's storied fifty year history there, and where three years and 2500 hours of labor went into the restoration of John's car.

Work began in earnest in late 2022, with all being completed in late 2025.

Restoration is not for the faint of heart, as seeing one's beloved in such a state can be shocking. It is fair to say that Sue was taken aback during a 2023 visit to the Works' Panel Shop, where the chassis and its underlying Superleggera frame were being restored, and where each aluminum panel was being hand-formed.

"Wow!" she exclaimed, "she looks amazing, doesn't she? You've done such a lot of work."

John was a bit flummoxed too, noting that the once-derelict lump was shaping up well. "It looks like an Aston Martin now. I'm thrilled. It's great to see all the old ways of building a car have been passed on, and younger people here are keeping up the tradition."

Universally acknowledged as the most sought-after specification of all DB5s, the Williams car is a right-hand-drive 1965 DB5 saloon with the sought-after Vantage engine. It was initially specified in what remains, today, the most desirable exterior color – Silver Birch – and boasts a fascinating provenance that includes an original owner from the St George’s Hill area of Surrey, a gated community that, at the time, was home to many celebrities including The Beatles’ John Lennon and Ringo Starr.

Of the 1,022 DB5 models built by Aston Martin between 1963 and 1965, fewer than 1,000 (887) were built in the saloon body style and, of those, only 39 originally boasted the Silver Birch paintwork, higher output Vantage engine, and right-hand drive configuration of the Williams car, making this a particularly rare and desirable example of "the most famous car in the world".

It is, then, a right and proper time capsule of Sixties motoring, now in better-than-new condition.

Founded in 1950, George's Speed Shop is now recognized as the oldest continuously operating speed shop in the USA and is run by his son, Gregg.

The car pulled hard to the left, smashing violently over the guardrail. The impact tore the fiberglass body completely off the chassis, sending it flying an estimated 100 feet into the air. While Savage escaped with only minor rib injuries and bruises, the car itself was heavily damaged and bent up. Hoven never returned to active competition.

Savage was gutted for wrecking his friend's car, once telling Hoven that he only crashed once in all of his years of driving, to which Hoven good-naturedly replied, "yeah, but why did it have to be in my car?!"

Savage's ribs were sorely bruised but the two remained good friends and, despite Hoven's ribbing, he rebuilt the car and sold it to the production company that was filming Shirley Muldowney's biographical film, "Heart Like a Wheel." It played a prominent role in the film, as did John's earlier Mach 1 funny car.

In the end, all was well.

For the record, it was Hoven's Midnight Special that debuted the first driver's rooftop escape hatch, a now-mandatory NHRA safety item. Too, the name was a double-entendre: John burned a lot of midnight oil working on the car, and it was also the name of a popular Friday night live music rock show of the day on NBC that was hosted by Wolfman Jack.

Boiling hydraulic fluid jammed the rear doors, and barrels full of expensive nitro eventually exploded. Denny and the crew could only watch from the side of the highway, crestfallen, as the entire operation, including this stunning car, arguably one of Joe's Steve Plueger-built best, burned to a crisp and all were wondering what could come next.

"Ever have a bad day?" Denny wondered aloud. "That was a bad day."

To top it off, the fire was so intense it even scorched the highway, and Pisano had to pay for it to get repaved.

In a sea of supercharged nitro-burning Hemis, I've learned to appreciate the sound of a blown Rat motor running on gas or alcohol. It's brutal.

And under the long hood of this handsome coupe? Why, a 3.2 liter BMW V8, of course!

The Frazer Nash story is one of those classic English cottage industry tales, started in 1922 by Archibald Frazer-Nash. Re-organized (via bankruptcy) as AFN, the company become importers and assemblers of BMWs, particularly the very legendary 328.