Bonhams’ annual appointment with James Bond must be the only auction where it is difficult to distinguish the cars on offer from the visiting public’s own: the roads around Aston Martin Works Service’s premises in Newport Pagnell were dotted with parked Aston Martins of all ages, paving the way to ‘The Aston Martin Sale’ on 21 May.

DB4s and DB5s have long become tantalisingly sought-after among the collectors worldwide, with values accelerating faster than a V8 Vantage: nine DB4s of various degrees of rarity, positioned artfully between car lift posts at Aston Martin’s maintenance and service hosting grounds would have been alluring enough to pull the crowds even without a 1965 DB5 Vantage Shooting Brake taking pride of place in the middle of the vast room.

One of only twelve DB5 sports saloons converted into shooting brake (all of them surviving), costing twice as much as an average house in 1965 and constantly surrounded by spectators, the car was seldom visible across the packed room: that did not stop it fetching £390k before Buyer’s Premium, one of the last lots of a very prestigious catalogue of Astons.

Things got off to a good start for auctioneer James Knight, Head of Motoring for Bonhams. Having just come back from a successful sale in Monaco the day before, he did not disappoint the audience with the usual effervescence: an initial £100k offer for a 1968 Aston Martin DB6 Mk1 Volante quickly degenerated into a bidding war, escalating to £210k and prompting Knight to ask parties 'not to fight – we’ve got another one later.'

Indeed the second Volante (the convertible DB6 was the first Aston to gain the ‘Volante’ moniker) went for the same money soon afterwards.

Usually, replicas (or ‘recreations’ as they are fancifully called nowadays) fetch infinitely less than the real cars on which they are based. In the case of a 1961 Aston Martin DB4GT Recreation, which reached the £200k mark, the rule did not apply as the car was based on an original DB4.
Surprises lay ahead in the ‘barn-find corner’. Strategically positioned on one side of the room, and smelling of history, damp and forgotten rural garages, it held a 1963 Aston Martin DB4 Convertible (the second rarest Aston, after the Zagato) which had been kept in storage for the last 35 years and absent from the AMOC Register. The starting bid at £60k was superseded within a few minutes, and in the silent room offers rained in to reach £280k under the hammer, followed by a round of applause for the brave restorer.

Not to be outdone, the 1964 DB5 Saloon in need of full re-commissioning and with an estimate tag of £50k-£60k pushed demand to £250k: the auctioneer’s lightly sarcastic ‘have you got £252k?’ prompted a further hike to the final bid for £255k.

Although not, technically speaking, a ‘white glove sale’, as one or two cars received close offers but did not sell on the spot, Mr Knight admitted that it was likely Bonhams would conclude the auction with a final 100% sale rate.