Lot 463: 1986 Aston Martin V8 Vantage Zagato

During the late 1980's, Aston Martin were beginning to have to look for ways of boosting the flagging sales of the company's long serving V8. Supercar sales in general had slumped and in order to revive some interest in the genre, a deal was struck between this most traditional of British companies and the Italian coachbuilder, Zagato. The pair had a considerable association already having produced the glorious Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato in the early 1960's, a car that has long been considered one of the most desirable GT cars of all time and commanding similar respect to its direct counterpart, the Ferrari GT 250. A mere fifty of these hand built coups were produced with their undoubtedly stylish lightweight aluminium bodywork and 350bhp power units, these cars were blessed with true supercar performance, 0-60mph is recorded as being achieved in less than six seconds with an impressive top speed in the region of 180mph.The values of these supercars soared from the 175,000 list price originally quoted to the amazing figure of 450,000, the most ever paid for one. Perhaps because of this, it is still possible to find cars with mileages as low as this example which has covered under 3,000 miles in the hands of it's few owners. Before returning to the U.K from its long ownership in a Hong Kong collection, the car has had recent service work carried out at Aston Martin Hong Kong. Finished in Titanium Grey and trimmed in St James' red leather, there can be no question that when compared to some of the contempory European cars, the Aston, for all it's Italian design, has a certain flair and remains without doubt a 'Gentleman's supercar'. This is surely an unrepeatable opportunity for any serious collector of low mileage supercars.