Work begins to restore rare Aston Martin in Bridgnorth
Work has begun in Bridgnorth. to restore one of the world's rarest cars.
The Aston Martin Bulldog concept car was designed in the late 1970s to showcase the capabilities of the British motor car company's engineering facilities, and is now sitting in the garages of Classic Motor Cars (CMC).
The 18-month job will involve about 3,500 hours of work to be completed by a team of eight at CMC's base in Stanmore Business Park.
Once the Bulldog has been totally stripped down, mechanics will restore it to its original specification.
Despite work beginning before the UK entered lockdown, the project was soon brought to an abrupt halt.
Nigel Woodward, managing director at CMC, said: “Being given the opportunity to restore this car is a real accolade.
“There has been huge interest from around the world and we thought that we would be able to get on with the 18-month restoration and regularly share the progress with the media. However, that was not to be and we had to stop work a few weeks later.
“However, we wanted to show what progress we had made and how far we had got prior to the lockdown, so we are releasing a series of pictures over the next couple of months to bring people up to speed."
Mr Woodward added: “In the meantime, the break in restoration has allowed us to do even more research on the car. The initial publicity received from when we announced the restoration has resulted in people sending us a number of historical pictures we had not seen before. These will help us when we get the restoration underway again."
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Styled by William Towns, the vehicle was a one-off concept car that Aston Martin created to prove that it was not only a small company of renowned motoring artisans, but that its engineering prowess was also world class.
The car has been in storage since and the team at CMC expected to find all sorts of challenges once it is taken apart.
One of the biggest issues will be parts and if the company cannot find them they will be manufactured on site.
Mr Woodward said: “ At the moment we are assuming that nothing on the car works. We have a huge history file on the car and are working with the engineers who originally built it, but there is much more we would like to know. Who changed the colour of the car for example? It was originally white and grey, not green, when it was given carburettors."
It was hoped the car would be capable of more than 200mph, making it the fastest production car of its time, but on the test track it just fell short – clocking 191mph.
The prototype was never put into production, but after its restoration by CMC the undisclosed owner is planning to see if the car will reach more than 200mph before taking it on a world tour.
