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NEWS
Aston Martin owners party in Canberra
Eight-day centenary celebrations a jamboree of Aston Martin brand loyalty“The name is Surname. Christian Surname.” Thus did two Aston Martin owners introduce themselves to us on the concourse by Canberra’s Lake Burley Griffin.
Has a fictional character ever been as closely aligned with a marque as has James Bond with Aston Martin? Many a film franchise and car maker has worked at it, but none has achieved the perfect synergy between man and marque set in motion when, in 1964’s Goldfinger, Q armed Sean Connery with a DB5 blinged up with smokescreen and oil slick dispensers, left and right front wing machine guns and a passenger ejector seat.
So there was no shortage of chortled such introductions and rego-plate references to Bond, Q and 007. The occasion was the national meeting of the Aston Martin Owners Club’s Australian chapter. It’s a biennial event held in different locations across the country – 2010 was in South Australia, 2008 in the Hunter Valley in NSW.
This year, they’re holding it in the nation’s capital to mark the dual centenaries of Aston Martin and Canberra.
These are affairs of the heart for people of leisure. This year’s eight-day event kicked off with a Friday night welcome reception. On Saturday came a four-hour lakeside concourse show, followed by dinner at a nearby restaurant.
Sunday saw owners take a tour of local wineries, cultural landmarks and the like, with Monday given to a “speed event day” at Wakefield Park. For the rest of the week, a cavalcade of Astons new and old takes a tour of the NSW south coast and the Snowy Mountains.
Show day saw them convene on the lawn by the lake – a couple of DB2s and a replica DB3S from the 1950s, several 1970s DBS and V8 models, a late-1980s Virage, a DB7 or two from the 1990s and no shortage of new-millennial Vanquishes, Vantages and Virages.
And, of course, a handful of those hallmark models from the 1960s, the DB4, 5 and 6. Parked not far away from a beautifully restored 1958 DB2/4 is a metallic blue 1965 DB5. It’s been in the possession of Canberran Peter Yorke since 1979, when he picked it up for $10,000 – the price of a mid-spec Commodore at the time.
Asked what kind of restoration effort we were looking at here, Dr Yorke, a long-time Aston aficionado, told motoring.com.au it’s almost original. He’s resprayed it once in its original hue, and he’s had to remove a little corrosion in the parts where aluminium meets steel. “Otherwise it’s original – the leatherwork, the carpet, instruments, everything.”
It was the sight of a 1958 DB2/4 – “that one over there, in fact” – that lit the touchpaper for his love of the marque. He saw it as a schoolboy in the 1960s, wanted it and had himself a DB2 by twenty. He’s also had a 1971 DBS, and counts a three year-old DB9 Volante as his daily drive. “Well that and I take this one out a couple of days a week, he said of the DB5. It’s still an excellent commuter.”
Old Astons are good for people who like to get a bit of grease on their hands, too. “I wouldn’t go near a modern engine like the DB9, but old ones are fun to work on, and there’s nothing complicated about them. The triple SU carbs are easy enough to keep in tune, and British cars of this vintage all used stock electrics and instruments from Lucas and Smiths – stuff that’s pretty easy to find.” That’s something he finds handy as he builds himself a replica DB3S racer, which he hopes to have on the road in about a year.
Meanwhile, with about 100,000 miles (160,000km) on the clock, his DB5 is worth something in the vicinity of half a million dollars – about ten times the price of today’s high-spec Commodore.
Not that that matters one whit to Mr Yorke, or indeed to many of the people here today. Speculators wouldn’t want to make themselves too conspicuous at a jamboree of brand loyalists like this. These cars don’t change hands often – their owners achieve such stratospheric potential returns precisely by keeping them potential.
This brand loyalty has been crucial in keeping alive a marque that’s spent more than its fair share of history with its toes over the edge of a cliff. Asked if clubbers look with favour or disdain on product from any specific era, they prove an open-minded lot. “Anyone who loves Aston could only be very pleased at the cash injection they got from Ford,” one fellow said. “They saved Aston from extinction. I mean, near-extinction’s been the history of Aston Martin. It’s had long history of bailouts, from before David Brown bought them out in 1947.” At last count, in December 2012, an Italian private equity concern bought 37.5 per cent. They join a consortium of Kuwaiti and American interests headed up by Prodrive chief David Richards.
Concourse convenor Arne Schimmelfeder says the ratio of new to old is a sign of the marque’s relative good health in Australia. For a some years beginning with its arrival here in the 1950s, Aston averaged “probably five new car sales a year”, he told motoring.com.au.
Through the 1970s and 1980s the marque struggled under the weight of a strong dollar and a punishing regime of import tariffs. “That one there,” Mr Schimmelfeder said, pointing to a drop-top V8 Volante nearby, “it was first prize in a competition held by a newspaper and a radio station to mark the release of The Living Daylights in 1987. “But it wasn’t new. It’s actually a 1981 model, which reflects the prices of the times.”
Things began to turn with the launch of the DB7 in 1993, he continued, with sales “going up into the fifties, I think.” Since peaking in the 160s – “168, I think” – in 2008, sales have taken a hit in the wake of the GFC, down to 101 in 2011 and 94 in 2012.
“I think it’s in reasonable health here these days, though,” Mr Schimmelfeder said. “Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd sponsor this event, and the local distributor, Trivett, has people on hand here today. With dealers getting more involved with the club, we’re seeing a fair number of new buyers joining and new cars turning up. You can see that here today – where once the great majority of cars were at least ten years old, often much more, there are far more new ones around now.”
Membership varies year to year, but sits around 200 at the moment. That’s a lot of love for a marque Mr Schimmelfeder estimates has “maybe a thousand” units on Aussie roads. “It’s hard to say exactly how many, because so many were privately imported, especially in the 1970s, and a lot left the country in 1990s and 2000s. The last time I checked, a few years ago now, it was at about 550. But it’s certainly over 800 now.”
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Written byJeremy Bass
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