1973 Aston Martin V8
“ The star of the 1973 London Motor Show, with recent money spent at Aston Martin Works. ”
Offered as part of a curated online auction in conjunction with the Aston Martin Owner's Club Festival at the British Museum on 21st June 2026.

Background
The Aston Martins that followed on from the DB6 were very obviously from the pen of a different designer.

They took their aesthetic cues from the design zeitgeist of the 60s and 70s, not the 40s and 50s. They also tipped an unapologetic and undisguised nod to America’s muscle cars – the Ford Mustang in particular.

After the DB6 came the DBS, still with a six-cylinder engine and patiently awaiting the arrival of a V8 that promised to give the car the grunt to go with the grace.

The V8 proved to be well worth waiting for. It was a proper muscle car and one that owed its squat, steroidal stance and sleekly aggressive profile to the design pen of Aston’s William Towns.

The engine was designed by Polish émigré Tadek Marek, a man whose inimitable engineering imprint stretches from the DBR2 racing car engine, through the redesign of Aston’s venerable, Bentley-derived straight-six, to the development of the 5.3-litre V8 for the DBS V8 in 1969.

Several iterations later, this fabulous powerplant only reluctantly retired once it had motored into the new millennium, bulked up to 600bhp, and propelled the Vantage 600 to speeds reputedly in excess of 200mph.

The Aston Martin V8 Series 2 was the first of the line to be known simply as the V8 (its predecessor, the DBS V8, was effectively the Aston Martin V8 Series 1, although it never bore that moniker).

Weber carburettors were reinstated for the Series 3 in 1973, and the cars were identifiable by the larger bonnet scoops designed to accommodate them.

The last Series 3 cars were produced in October 1978, by which time a total of 967 Series 3 V8s had rolled off the production line at Newport Pagnell.

Every car took around 1,200 man-hours to build and each was every bit as handmade as a Savile Row suit.

The Aston Martin V8 may have had more than enough testosterone to compete with the Mustangs, Chargers and Corvettes of its trans-Atlantic cousins - it could reach 60mph in a very impressive 5.7 seconds - but it did so with all the unmistakably British pedigree and class of a St. James’ gentleman’s club.

Overview
The car’s November 1973 registration date places it firmly in Series 3 territory, as of course do the various design changes introduced for the Series 3, with the first of these quad Weber carburettor V8s leaving Newport Pagnell in August 1973.

The Series 3 cars started with the chassis number V8/11002/RCA, so this car’s number, V8/11043/RCA, suggests that it was the 41st of this series built.

We say ‘suggests’ because Aston Martin’s record-keeping back in the day was sometimes a little less than orthodox or forensically accurate.

Either way, this car left Newport Pagnell finished in Stardust Ascot Grey Metallic with blue leather and black carpets.

Before the first owner took delivery of the V8, Aston Martin featured this very car on its 1973 London Motor Show stand at Earls Court.

Records suggest the first owner of our car kept it for a full 26 years right up until October 1999. A number of other owners followed with the car hitting the radar again in 2010 when its restoration journey began.

The penultimate owner bought the V8 in April 2020 at auction, with the restoration well advanced but still at ‘work in progress’ stage.

Most of the chassis and bodywork issues had been addressed and many parts had been powder coated and were ready for assembly and installation.

That owner went on to complete the work to a very high standard, spending north of £100,000 in the process, with much of the work completed by Alan Mann Racing, plus nearly £17,000-worth of interior retrimming carried out by Trimmania of Finchampstead.

The vendor has owned the car since July 2023 and, with commendable diligence and an admirable disregard for cost, one of the first things he did was send the car off to Aston Martin Works to be given a proper shake-down and receive all and any remedial attention necessary.

We know from experience with previous marque owners that no-one looking to cut corners or save money sends their car off to Aston’s Works department at Newport Pagnell.

We have driven the car and can attest to the fact that it starts, runs and behaves exactly as you would hope and expect of a properly fettled V8 Series 3.

We know what a good one feels and looks like.

And we know what a not-so-good one feels and looks like.

This is a good one.

Estimate: £75,000 - £85,000

View Current Price Bid HERE