by The Aston Martin Works team has completed the restoration of an Aston Martin DB5 Vantage, which shines as if it has just rolled off the set of a James Bond film. However, the car’s perfect rebuild is only the second most amazing thing in this story.
The Story of an Aston Martin
The real miracle is the story of its owner, who purchased this car when he was only 19 years old, and the DB5 itself was eight. Welshman John Williams, working as a welder in 1973, saved up £900 for the dream of his life – a 1965 Aston Martin DB5. In those times, for ordinary people, especially for workers from Wales, this was an incredible event.
Williams saved every extra penny for over a year and worked overtime to accumulate the necessary amount. According to Aston Martin, today this is equivalent to £15,000, although the Bank of England’s historical inflation calculator shows a figure closer to £10,000. This indicates two facts: the incredible determination of the young welder and how much the value of exclusive cars has grown since then.
A Dream That Became Reality
In September 1973, the Aston Martin-obsessed teenager took a train from North Wales to London to see the car in person. It was a Vantage model with more powerful triple Weber carburetors and 325 horsepower. The advertisement in Motorsport magazine promised the future owner hefty maintenance bills. This specimen was rare: of the 1,022 DB5s produced between 1963 and 1965, only 39 were right-hand-drive coupes in the Vantage version and painted in Silver Birch, just like Agent 007’s car.
Williams liked the car, handed over the cash, and drove the silver Aston back to Wales, using it as daily transport for several years. Life intervened when in 1977 Williams got a job in the Middle East, and the DB5 remained on the driveway, where it gradually began to deteriorate.
A Half-Century Wait
His wife Sue recalls how neighborhood children jumped on the hood, and one energetic boy even broke off the exhaust pipe. Offers to buy the car came and went, but she always told her husband he would never get another one like it. And so Williams carried his dream through family life and financial ups and downs, keeping the Aston for half a century.
Fifty years later, the couple brought the rusty classic back to Newport Pagnell for a full restoration at the factory. Over 2,500 hours of work correcting the bodywork, painting, reupholstering the interior, and sourcing original parts – and the DB5 became better than new. Aston Martin does not disclose the cost of the restoration, but considering the restored car is likely worth around a million pounds sterling, and he once paid only £900 for it, it can be said the investment paid off.
This story is a vivid example of how personal attachment and loyalty to a dream can transform an ordinary object into a priceless legacy. It also demonstrates the change in the cultural and financial landscape: if once a real Aston Martin could be attainable for a hardworking laborer, today such cars have become primarily investment assets or luxury items for a very narrow circle. John Williams’s story reminds us of an era when a car was not just transport or a status symbol, but an extension of personality and the embodiment of hard work.
