Classic Aston Martins holding their appeal and value

Like an old-money family living beyond its means, Ford Motor has decided it must sell the automotive equivalent of the manor house that it can no longer afford to keep. The company announced last summer that it wants to sell Aston Martin, the British sports car maker it acquired in 1987 and the crown jewel of its luxury division, the Premier Automotive Group - reports NY Times.

The consensus among enthusiasts is that Ford’s reign over Aston Martin has been largely benevolent. Still, the question among collectors is how a change of ownership may affect the value of older Aston Martins.

Just as Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters made before the company’s takeover by CBS are the only instruments that matter for collectors, most of the collecting activity in Aston Martins is with cars produced during the marque’s golden era of 1947 to 1972, when it was owned by David Brown, a British industrialist.

The DB4 and DB5 of 1958-65 are generally considered the apex of the David Brown era (he’s the DB in the model names) and are among the loveliest front-engine grand touring cars ever produced. Built using the complicated Italian superleggera method — draping hand-wrought alloy body panels over a frame of tiny steel tubes — they were built to blast safely across European motorways, autostradas, autobahns and routes nationale, at speeds in excess of 100 miles an hour. And they had to look good parked in front of places like Brenner’s Park-Hotel and Spa in Baden-Baden, Germany, or the Gstaad Palace hotel in Switzerland.

Rocky Santiago, a classic car dealer in Oklahoma City, has owned a 1965 DB5 since 1987 and has been selling vintage Aston Martins for more than 25 years. Mr. Santiago said he thought the appeal of a classic Aston was in its good taste and lack of flamboyance. Those who wanted to be more low-key upper-crust had to buy a Bristol, a car so exclusive that it has never advertised and is still sold out of an unassuming London showroom on Kensington High Street.

The collector car market is in love with David Brown-era Astons. According to price guides, values of the DB4 and DB5 have approximately doubled over the last three years, with current prices ranging from $150,000 to $275,000.

If you want to tan in your classic Aston, the ultra-rare convertibles (“drophead coupes,” or Volantes, in Aston-speak) cost up to $100,000 more.

Mr. Santiago said the surge in values was a result of the quality of the alloy coachwork and the cars’ rarity and beauty. Increases may also be fueled by memories of James Bond ejecting one of Goldfinger’s none-too-bright flunkies out of the roof of a DB5.

You have to add another zero if you want an example of the ultimate postwar Aston Martin — the DB4 GT Zagato. Zagato was the Italian coachbuilder responsible for the design of the body. Only 19 were built.

The DB4 GTZ was to be Aston’s version of the Ferrari 250 SWB, a very successful dual-purpose sports racer. Although top racing success eluded it, the GT Zagato is regarded by collectors as one of the most charismatic and sexy sports cars of the ’60s — its curves and bulges should carry a parental advisory. The owner of the last one to appear at a public auction turned down a bid of $2.5 million in Monterey, Calif., in August 2005.

Demand has been so high for one of the 19 original DB4 GT Zagatos that in 1991, Aston Martin decided to build four more cars 30 years after the original run, giving them serial numbers allocated during the original run but never used. Known as Sanction 2 cars, their values are a fraction of the originals, but they are near-exact copies. Many collectors know the serial numbers of the originals by heart.

While racing triumph eluded the DB4 GT Zagato, Aston has had its share of success. In fact, the company was named for one of its founders, Lionel Martin, and a hill-climb competition at Aston Hill in Britain.

In the 1920s, Aston specialized in four-cylinder competition cars and was a pioneer in the twin-cam 16-valve engines common today. But again, it was the David Brown era that brought Aston its greatest glory in competition, culminating in a victory at Le Mans and the World Sports Car Championship in 1959. Stirling Moss, Carroll Shelby and Roy Salvadori all drove for Aston that year. The company returned to racing sporadically in the 1980s and ’90s and most recently with the DBR9, a competition version of the DB9, to race in international GT car events.

Perennial blue chips, the DB series cars are unlikely to be affected by anything that happens to Aston. But a sale of the company could focus attention on the remaining vintage Astons in the $30,000 to $60,000 range — the 1968-72 DBS, the last of the David Brown cars, or post-Brown cars like the brawny V-8 Vantage of the ’70s and ’80s.

While an attractive car, the first Ford-era Aston, the DB7, was too similar to the contemporary Jaguar XK8. Its use of cheap switches from the Ford parts bin, and the fact that it was made in higher numbers than any other Aston — more than 6,000 were built — will probably ensure that it remains just an attractive used car.

Asked if there was a future collectible from the period of Ford ownership, Mr. Santiago said the Vanquish S was a candidate. Similar in concept but less extroverted than, say, a Ferrari Daytona, the Vanquish is brutally fast and has real swagger.

Uncertainty seems to go with the territory where the makers of exclusive sports cars are concerned. Like Aston Martin, the automakers Maserati, Lotus, TVR and Lamborghini have flirted with oblivion on several occasions. Other automakers like DeTomaso, Iso and Facel, now obscure, did more than flirt. Now that Aston is for sale, it could end up on either list.

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