MY FEEDLY

Project Car: A 1969 Aston Martin DBS – 40 Years In Storage

This is a 1969 Aston Martin DBS Series 1, or perhaps more accurately, it’s the bodyshell of a 1969 Aston Martin DBS Series 1. It’s currently being offered for sale as a stalled restoration project, and it appears to be a good solid foundation for someone looking to build themselves an original Aston DBS.

After an interesting life in Britain and then in the south of France, this DBS was stripped in the 1980s as its restoration commenced. The original straight-six engine was sold as the owner planned to do a V8 conversion. The restoration never progressed, and the car has remained in the condition you see it in here for the better part of 40 years.

Fast Facts – The Aston Martin DBS

The Aston Martin DBS was officially released in 1967 as the successor to the Aston Martin DB6.
The styling of the new car, penned by William Towns, was a marked divergence from classic Aston styling, and it would define the design language of the British marque for the following 20+ years.
The car is a coupe with four full-sized seats, ample trunk space, fastback styling, and it was originally offered with the classic Aston Martin straight-six that had originally been designed by Tadek Marek in the 1950s.
The car you see here is now offered as little more than a body shell with its doors and a few other parts. It will require a full restoration and the new owner will need to source a suitable drivetrain.

This DBS shell has been in storage for the better part of 40 years, it’s now being offered for sale to a new owner who can complete the rebuild and get it back on the road.

The Aston Martin DBS

When Aston Martin announced the all-new DBS V12 in 2007 it was clear that the car was a modern homage to the first DBS, the car that changed Aston Martin’s design language back in 1967 from the curves of the DB6 to the clean lines of William Towns new vision for the company.

The DB6 didn’t have space under the hood to accommodate the new V8 that Aston had under development by famed engineer Tadek Marek and his team. As a result it was decided that a new car was needed to guide the company out of the 1960s and into the 1970s.

Touring of Milan had originally been contracted to design and develop the new car however they went out of business after two prototypes had been made, and Aston hired Towns to take over design duties.

The car he developed was still clearly an Aston, however it featured far more modern styling, styling that was controversial with Aston’s conservative clientele at the time. Ultimately the company would sell almost a thousand of them between 1967 and 1972, it would be succeeded by the Aston Martin V8 released in 1969 and sold until 1989.

The sharp, clean lines of the DBS would help establish Aston’s core design language for the coming two decades.

A Stalled Restoration

Anyone who has ever embarked on a rebuild or restoration project will know that there are times when you get a lot of work done, and times when no work at all is completed due to other commitments. Occasionally these periods of little or no work extend onwards for months or years as life gets in the way.

The Aston Martin DBS you see here is one of those projects that never made it past the teardown phase. The drivetrain has been removed and sold on as the owner intended to perform a V8 conversion on the car, likely with an Aston Martin V8 for the sake of originality.

Unfortunately the restoration has now been stalled for the better part of 40 years, it’s being offered for sale in the hopes that a new owner will pick up the mantle and complete the job, bringing the car back to the road for the first time since the 1980s.

If you’d like to read more about this Aston or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing on Collecting Cars, it’s currently being auctioned live.

This is how the Aston Martin DBS looks in complete form. Image courtesy of Aston Martin.

Images courtesy of Collecting Cars

The post Project Car: A 1969 Aston Martin DBS – 40 Years In Storage appeared first on Silodrome.

from Silodrome https://silodrome.com/aston-martin-dbs-project-car/
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This Is The First Healy Enigma V8 Ever Built

This is a Healy Enigma V8, it was developed by a modestly sized independent British company as their take on a modern version of the venerated Austin-Healey 3000.

The Enigma V8 has a custom steel spaceframe chassis and a lightweight glass fiber body, under the skin you’ll find modified suspension and brakes from the Mazda Miata, and a 4.0 liter 300 bhp V8 engine from a Lexus.

Fast Facts – The Healy Enigma

The Healy Enigma is a modern interpretation of the iconic Austin-Healey 3000, a British sports car from the late 1950s and 1960s that became a hit with European and American buyers alike.
Underneath its retro body you’ll find a steel spaceframe chassis, independent front and rear suspension, disc brakes at all four wheels, a comfortable modern interior, and a 300 bhp V8.
Healy Designs Ltd offers the Healy Enigma as either a turnkey car or in kit car form, and you can choose between a four cylinder Miata engine or a Lexus V8.
The Enigma is becoming an increasingly popular choice for kit car builders in the UK thanks to its combination of modern handling, reliability, and comfort with classic design cues.

A Modern Take On The Classic Big Healey

Healy Designs Ltd started out in 2004 with a single goal in mind – to bring back the legendary Austin-Healey 3000.

Rather than just developing a replica the team led by Martin Williamson and Mick Snell decided to develop a modern design, a design that Donald Healey himself would immediately recognize.

The interior of the car is entirely modern, with climate control, a reversing camera, and all the bells and whistles you’d expect in a current-day sports car.

Once the body design had been completed a steel spaceframe chassis was developed, it was decided that the car would use the running gear and powertrain from a Miata in order to keep costs down and ensure that parts availability would never be a problem.

Austin-Healey And The Healey Hundred

The original “Big Healey” was the Healey Hundred, first shown to the public at the 1952 London Motor Show. It was essentially a concept car developed by former racing driver and Monte Carlo Rally-winner Donald Healey and a small team.

Donald and his team had a limited budget, certainly not enough to develop engines, gearboxes, and other complex components, so instead they designed their own body and chassis, then bought in the running gear and powertrain from other manufacturers.

The styling of the Healy Enigma is modern, with many references to the Big Healeys of old. Very similar air vents behind the front wheels were used on the works Healey rally cars of the 1960s.

In the case of the Big Healeys, the engine, gearbox, and many other parts were supplied by Austin, which resulted in the name Austin-Healey. This agreement came about when Leonard Lord, managing director of Austin, saw the Healey Hundred at the London Motor Show and struck a deal with Donald Healey to put the car into production.

The Healy Enigma And The Enigma V8

Given the unusual way the original Big Healeys came about it makes a lot of sense that a modern version of the car follow the same fundamental path – constructing the chassis and body in-house and then buying in the running gear and powertrain elements to keep costs manageable.

The team initially chose to use most of the required components from the Mazda Miata due to the broad availability of the model, and for the fact that the Miata’s core concept was actually based on classic British roadsters like the Lotus Elan.

This use of Miata parts would take care of the engine, transmission, differential, suspension, brakes, windshield, interior fit out, and the ECU and wiring loom. Many Enigma owners have built their cars in their own sheds or garages using a donor Miata that gets progressively stripped for the needed parts.

The 4.0 liter quad cam, 32 valve, all-alloy V8 is sourced from Lexus. Even in a moderate state of tune it produces an effortless 300 bhp.

More recently the company introduced the Healy Enigma V8, a vastly quicker and more powerful version of the car that makes use of an all-alloy, quad cam Lexus V8 up front producing 300+ bhp depending on the state of tune.

The Healey Enigma V8 Shown Here

The example you see here is a 2016 Healey Enigma V8, in fact it’s the first Healy Enigma V8 that was ever built.

The car was bought by the current owner directly from company co-founder Martin Williamson after he visited the factory and gave it a test drive. The original sale price was £37,000 which works out to approximately $49,600 USD.

Under the hood you’ll find a 300 bhp Lexus V8 that combines power with extreme reliability, this power is sent to the rear wheels via a four-speed automatic gearbox.

An automatic box was likely chosen to make the car easier to manage for people who came to try it out as the official factory demonstrator, but a swap to a manual box wouldn’t be a particularly complicated task for a suitably motivated new owner.

The car is now being auctioned live on The Market, if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

Images courtesy of Bonhams / The Market

The post This Is The First Healy Enigma V8 Ever Built appeared first on Silodrome.

from Silodrome https://silodrome.com/healy-enigma-v8/
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A Rare 80s Supercar: The Aston Martin V8 Vantage Zagato

The Aston Martin V8 Vantage Zagato came about as a series of events that occurred at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1984. The Aston Martin stand was placed near the Carrozzeria Zagato stand, and the bosses from the two companies started reminiscing about the legendary Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato from 1960.

The Geneva Motor Show of ’84 also saw the unveiling of the Ferrari 288 GTO, Aston Martin executives saw people clamoring to put down a deposit on the wild, high performance, low production volume vehicle.

These two events would contribute to the start of the Aston Martin V8 Vantage Zagato program which would result in the new and somewhat controversial model being introduced just two years later in 1986.

Fast Facts – The Aston Martin V8 Vantage Zagato

When it was first shown to the public as a design sketch in 1985 the Aston Martin V8 Vantage Zagato defied the odds by selling the entire 50 unit allocation in less than six months based solely on the drawing.
The V8 Vantage Zagato had large shoes to fill, it was immediately compared with the earlier Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato which is still regarded by many to be one of the most beautiful car designs of all time.
Much like the DB4 GT Zagato, the V8 Vantage Zagato had a hand-formed aluminum alloy body over a shortened Aston Martin chassis.
A certain amount of controversy has long surrounded the styling of the V8 Vantage Zagato, however with each passing year it’s becoming more widely appreciated as an automotive zeitgeist of the 80s.

Aston’s Unusual Supercar – The V8 Vantage Zagato

While there are some who will insist that a car needs to have the engine mounted in the back to qualify as a supercar, I’ve never believed this to be true.

Regardless of the engine location, it makes sense that supercar status should be gauged solely by the vehicle’s performance when compared with its contemporaries from the same point in history.

The extraordinary performance of the V8 Vantage Zagato combined with its quintessentially 80s styling has seen it growing in popularity in recent years.

The 1980s were a golden age in the history of the supercar, many of the most historically significant examples were built during this decade and the influence of these vehicles can still be felt today over 30 years later. The Testarossa, Countach, 959, F40, V16T, 288 GTO, CTR Yellowbird, Pantera GT5, Vector W8, were all in production during this decade.

There can be little argument that the Aston Martin V8 Vantage Zagato was one of the quickest supercars of the era, beating the top speed of the Ferrari Testarossa and the Lamborghini Countach by a handful of mph each.

It also has faster acceleration than the Ferrari 288 GTO – the Aston can do the 0 to 60 mph sprint in 4.8 seconds while it takes the Ferrari a whisker longer at 4.9 seconds. The GTO does win the top speed challenge however, with 189 mph vs the Aston’s 186 mph.

V8 Vantage Zagato Specifications

Power was provided by a specially prepared version of the Aston Martin V8, an all-alloy V8 with double overhead cams per bank, 16 valves, and in this case a capacity of 5340cc, a compression ratio of 10.2:1, a special high-performance camshaft and ported cylinder heads, combined with four Weber 48 IDF/3 carburetors.

This engine is capable of up to 437 bhp at 6250 rpm and 400 lb ft of torque at 5000 rpm. It rides on independent double A-arms up front with coil springs and an anti-roll bar, and in the rear you’ll find a de Dion arrangement with a Watt’s linkage and coil springs, with disc brakes front and back.

The power bulge was required to provide clearance for the four Weber carburetors. The 5.3 liter V8 produces 437 bhp at 6250 rpm and 400 lb ft of torque at 5000 rpm.

The body was hand formed from aluminum by Zagato craftsman and then fitted to a shortened steel box section Aston chassis. The end result was a car that is both lighter and faster than the original V8 Vantage.

Just 50 examples of the V8 Vantage Zagato were planned and deposits were sold based on this understanding, things changed when it was decided that a limited run of convertibles would also be built.

By the end of production 52 coupes and 37 convertibles had been sold to customers.

The Aston Martin V8 Vantage Zagato Shown Here

The V8 Vantage Zagato you see here is a 1987 model, it’s one of just 14 left-hand drive examples made with a manual transmission and it has just over 15,000 km from new on the odometer.

It’s finished with Javelin Grey over black leather colour scheme and you’ll find both air-conditioning and a stereo inside, two luxuries that all road-going examples of the model were fitted with.

This car is due to cross the auction block with RM Sotheby’s on the 19th of November with a price guide of $405,000 – $500,000 USD. If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.