Why is this Maserati ,000 when the Aston is 0,000 and needs another 0,000-400,000 to get it back in shape?

I’ve always lusted after the Aston Martin DB5. I’m not sure whether it’s the James Bond connection or whatever, but for some reason I felt I always wanted one.

One came up for sale near me about a year-and-a-half ago. I went to look at it – a right-hand-drive model that a man had owned since 1972 or ’73. We got down there and it was pretty much a complete wreck. I mean, I could see from 50 feet it was a mess. It was pewter grey with red leather interior. As I got closer I saw that the leather was completely cracked, broken, torn up. None of it was savable. All the dials were missing out of the dashboard; the steering wheel was pushed on but not bolted on.

The engine was not out of the car but not really in the car.

Apparently someone had tried to take it out with a hoist, then when it was off the engine mount, they had pulled it forward, got tired and leaned it up against the front of the car so the fan had punctured the radiator. The wire wheels looked OK but had a lot of rust. I got in the car and I could feel the floor flex when I put my foot down and I could see holes in the floor where the pedals were. It was a complete wreck. It looked almost too far-gone.

It had been an East Coast car that he had brought out here to LA sometime in the late ’80s. One of those projects he was going to do but, because he was not in good health and it just wasn’t in
good shape, he never did. I brought my guys with me and they said ‘No way, we’re not touching this’. But I said, well, let’s see what I can get it for.

I thought it was worth about ,000. The guy said no. I’d brought some other restoration guys with me and one said ‘If you gave me that car, I couldn’t restore it and make money on it. It would need an easy 0,000 to do.’ So I walked away from it.

About a year went by and I got a call from a lady who has a storage lock-up. She said: ‘I have a car that’s been in my lock-up since 1981, the owner disappeared ten years ago and I now have titles to the car. Would you like to buy it?’ I asked, ‘What is it?’ She said ‘It’s a 1962 Maserati 3500GTI.’

Basically, to me, this is an Italian Aston Martin. It has 12 spark plugs, six cylinders, dual overhead cams, 235 horsepower, fuel injection, ZF five-speed ’box, all like the Aston. Unlike the Aston’s, its body was perfect, the interior was pretty good, all the gauges beautiful, no rust at all, even the window glass was perfect.

‘What do you want for it?’ I asked. She said ,000. So I went down to look at it. And the car was exactly as it had been described.

In the meantime I had found out that the Aston had been sold for 0,000. The guy told me that he tried to sell this very same Aston Martin in 1975 for 00 and couldn’t get any takers. Not one. Couldn’t give it away.

I thought, why is this Maserati ,000 when the Aston is 0,000 and needs another 0,000-400,000 to get it back in shape? Why is one car so crazily valuable? My Maserati cost ,000 new in 1962. My parents only paid ,000 for their house then, so that was a lot of money for a car back in the day. In the early 1970s I remember the CitroΫn SM was voted Car of the Year here in America, when it cost about the same as a Ferrari or Maserati.

And yet, years later when I bought mine, fully restored, I paid ,000 for it when an equivalent Ferrari would be 0,000-300,000 – and the SM was technically superior in its suspension, brakes and that ride. So, what about the DB5? It’s just interesting. Is it all cachet? Is the James Bond factor that strong? There’s just something about an Aston that catches you. I like its English clubhouse feel, with the Smiths gauges and all of that, yet the Maserati has the
same type of dashboard. I think the Maserati is equally good looking, but it’s interesting that, arbitrarily, one is worth ten times the value of the other.

So why is this Maserati so reasonable? Were it a 2.0-litre twin-cam Porsche, it would be 0,000. If it were an Aston Martin it would be hundreds of thousands of dollars. What’s so different?

Here’s my question: is the Maserati undervalued or is the Aston overvalued? And what is the true value of both of these cars? How does one determine true value? I’d love to see this debated on the Letters pages. Write and tell me what you think.