Aston Martin Works completes restoration of a 1965 DB5 Vantage

Aston Martin Works says it completed a full restoration of John Williams’ 1965 DB5 Vantage, bought for £900 in the 1970s and now valued up to £1m. Read more.

For half a lifetime, John Williams wasn’t dreaming about a new car—he was dreaming about getting an old one back. The Welsh welder and garage owner bought his Aston Martin DB5 in the early 1970s for £900, a bold purchase for a teenager who saved hard, worked overtime, and eventually took the long train ride from North Wales to London to see a 1965 example that matched his ambition.

This wasn’t just any DB5. Williams’ car is a right-hand-drive 1965 saloon with the sought-after Vantage engine and Weber carburettors, finished in Silver Birch—a colour widely regarded as the most desirable for the model. Period details such as wire wheels and Sundym electrically operated windows underscored the appeal, and for several years the DB5 was more than a collector’s item: it was his daily driver.

Then, in 1977, the Aston was mothballed on the driveway when Williams left for work in the Middle East. What followed was the slow drift of time and circumstance—offers to buy came and went, money was sometimes tempting, but the car stayed. His wife Sue recalls neighbourhood kids clambering over it, bouncing on the bonnet and even snapping off the exhaust after balancing on the tailpipe. As the years passed, the dream shifted from ownership to restoration.

That is why, in late 2022, the Williams family brought the DB5 back to Newport Pagnell and Aston Martin Works, the marque’s heritage home and today a hub for sales, service, and restoration of historic Aston Martins. The project became a bare-metal restoration journey: the chassis and Superleggera frame were repaired, aluminium panels were hand-formed, and the car moved through panel, paint, trim, and heritage workshops before re-emerging complete.

Roughly three years later—and after more than 2,500 hours of work—the couple returned to Buckinghamshire to see the finished car. Paul Spires, President of Aston Martin Works, said the DB5 arrived in profoundly run-down condition, but the team relished the challenge and delivered a result he describes as better-than-new. While careful not to turn the story into a price tag, he suggested that, given the car’s specification and provenance, it could be worth up to £1 million if it were ever offered to the market again.

The press release also places the car’s desirability in context. Aston Martin built 1,022 DB5s between 1963 and 1965, with 887 produced in saloon form, and it highlights the rarity of Williams’ particular combination of right-hand drive, Vantage specification, and Silver Birch. Its backstory adds another layer: an early owner is linked to the St George’s Hill area of Surrey, a gated community associated at the time with celebrities including John Lennon and Ringo Starr.

For John Williams, however, the headline is simpler. After decades of waiting, he describes the finished DB5 as the return of something personal—worth every penny—and says it has been almost 50 years since he last drove it. Stories like this hint at why the most compelling classics are increasingly valued not just for their model name, but for the documented lives they’ve lived: the patience, the craftsmanship, and the conviction it takes to bring a car home and put it back on the road.