1958 Aston Martin DB Mk III Drophead Coupe
Offered by Bonhams | Reading, U.K. | June 2, 2018
Aston Martin’s model history is pretty straightforward, especially concerning their grand touring cars. Going backward in time, we have the current DB11, the concept-only DB10, the DB9, (strangely no DB8), the beautiful DB7, the DB6, DB5, DB4… and then it gets weird. There was a DB1 and a DB2. But then there was a DB2/4, an evolution of the DB2 that ultimately evolved into this, the DB Mk III. No DB3, though. Got it? Good.
The DB Mk III was updated version of the DB2/4 and it went on sale in 1957 and was available through 1959. The standard powertrain was a 2.9-liter straight-six good for 162 horsepower. This car carries a rare DBD high-output engine that creates 195 horsepower. Only 551 examples of this model were produced and most of those were two-door saloons. Only 85 were Drophead Coupe convertibles and only 14 of those have the 195 horse engine.
This was the first Aston production car to sport their signature grille that their cars still carry today. The body design was by Tickford, who was also responsible for the convertible variant.
This example has known ownership history since new. It spent much of the 1990s being overhauled but the most recent major renovations took place in 2006 and 2007. The current owner acquired the car in 2011. It shows just over 65,000 miles. A beauty and a rarity, this elegant Aston should command between $400,000-$470,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.
Update: Sold $523,694.
“Strangely” no DB8? I thought it was common knowledge that Aston decide to avoid the DB8 name because it sounded too much like the word “deviate”, which is obviously not something you want to associate to a car. What I think was a truly strange and wrong decision was to use up the great sounding name DB10 on a one-off showcar/movie prop, and go on to the rather more clumsy DB11 moniker for the actual production car.