If you’re the type who gets impatient when your car is tied up in the repair shop for, say, 2 1/2 hours, imagine the emotions of Peter Heydon.
When his car went into the Aston Martin restoration shops in Newport Pagnell, England, it didn’t roll out again for 2 1/2 years.
OK, we should probably mention that the car didn’t exactly roll into the AML Works Service and Restoration shops–at least not in the traditional sense. It arrived, according to a post-job summary by the folks at the AML shops, “in the back of a truck with many of the parts in carrier bags, wicker baskets, cardboard boxes and plastic bin-liners.”
Heydon, who lives outside of Ann Arbor, Mich., recalls the car’s parts inventory being “about 95 percent complete” when he acquired it in England from Mark Curtis for about $13,200.
But the factory report noted that a good many components “had to be totally re-engineered, others had to be specially sourced-in, and it was discovered that quite a few were not part of the car’s original specification, including a gearbox which was never intended for an Aston Martin.”
Oh, did we mention the fist-size hole in the engine block?
Heydon, who demands authenticity in his automotive restorations, wanted the original engine, along with the rest of the car, to emerge in as-new condition.
Restorations of this magnitude take time, but even this car represented the longest and most challenging resurrection in Aston Martin history. It required 4,000 hours of expert attention.
So let’s take a look at the car and the company.
Brits have always been keen on motoring and, like so many small British car companies, Aston Martin was founded by an enthusiast, Lionel Martin.
Martin came up with the first half of his company’s name from the Aston-Clinton hill climb competition he’d won in 1913.
Now owned by Ford, Aston Martin officially came into being in 1922 and staggered along until industrialist Sir David Brown took over in 1947.
That’s where the DB comes from in Aston Martin’s post-World War II model series. The DB series was built around a dual-overhead cam, in-line 6-cylinder engine designed by W.O. Bentley (of Bentley Motors) for Lagonda, a luxury car company that also had become part of Brown’s little empire.
There was no official DB1, though the designation was unofficially applied to a curvaceous roadster shown at the 1949 Earls Court Motor Show. The two-seat DB2 came along in 1950 and went through a number of functional updates before the DB2/4 made its appearance in 1957.
It was a hatchback before the term had come into general use, and the 2/4 designation was the British way of letting potential buyers know the car was essentially designed for two but could accommodate four. The 2/4’s rear seat folds flat to expand cargo capacity, a rare element of practicality in a sporting conveyance.
Though Aston Martin was successful in sports-car racing during the David Brown era, winning among other achievements the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1959, the DB2/4 Mark III was not a particularly fast car for its times.
With 162 horsepower from the standard production version, “special” version of the engine with a higher compression ratio generated 178 horsepower, the 3,000-pound car required almost 10 seconds to reach 60 m.p.h. and topped out at about 120 m.p.h.
It was also relatively expensive, which hasn’t changed. At about $7,500, a new DB2/4 Mark III cost about the same as a Cadillac Eldorado and considerably more than regular production Caddies.
Nevertheless, late ’50s critics were seduced by the aristocratic bark of the Aston’s exhaust system and were uniformly enthusiastic about the car’s decisive handling.
This was, incidentally, the first Aston Martin to attract the attention of Cmdr. James Bond, a.k.a. 007. Bond originally tooled around in a supercharged Bentley, but author Ian Fleming bolted the indestructible secret agent into a DB2/4 in Goldfinger. By the time the novel was adapted for the silver screen, the DB2/4 had given way to the DB5, which appeared in the movie, complete with its on-board arsenal of nasty surprises.
How did Heydon catch up with the collection of scabrous parts that became this elegant coupe?
“The same way I always do,” he says. “Once I decided I wanted a DB2, I joined the Aston Martin owners club. Owners clubs always have newsletters and tons of information available. I belong to several of them. It’s part of the fun.”
Armed with leads from the Aston club and elsewhere, Heydon came up with five candidates, all in England, before settling on this car.
“The other cars were in somewhat better shape than this one, some of them actually in running condition,” he recalls. “But regardless of the choice, I knew the car would be taken down to its component parts, and the restoration would be total.”
What he hadn’t expected was just how “total” it would wind up being.
“It got pretty crazy sometimes,” he admits, “and we had fights all the way along. The British seem to have a certain style in projects like this. They seem to feel they never have to be accountable to the person paying the bills,” he said.
“But we all emerged as friends. And I have to say I’m very pleased with the result.”
Ah, yes, the bills. Like most collectors, Heydon is reluctant to discuss the value of his DB2/4.
The value of a painstakingly restored Aston Martin notwithstanding, the services of a first-rate, damn-the-expenses restoration shop and 4,000 hours of work by expert craftsmen has to represent a sobering sum.
Be that as it may, it’s refreshing that the affable Heydon, unlike many denizens of the concourse car circuit, doesn’t treat his cars like hothouse plants. A gorgeous Ford Model A one-ton truck handles hauling chores on the Heydon farm northwest of Ann Arbor.
And when the Aston was roadworthy last November, Heydon and his wife of 32 years, Rita, set off on a 2,000-mile tour of France.
A retired University of Michigan English professor, Peter Heydon, 59, is embarked on his next project, an extremely rare Deusenberg boattail roadster, while Rita Heydon keeps tabs on the family’s equine collection.
“I think we have 13 or 14 horses,” he says. “I’m not really sure. Rita’s into horses. I’m into horsepower.”
