How much would you be willing to pay (if you had deep pockets) for a 1964 Aston Martin DB5? How much more would you pay if that DB5 was once owned by former Beatle Paul McCartney?
Well, somebody bid between £307,000 ($490,463) and £344,400 ($550,282) (depends on which news site you prefer, neither giving the buyer’s name) at RM Auctions’ recent London event and drove away with one beautiful car (see pictures here).
Of course, the price was far less than the $4.1 million paid for the heavily-modified Aston Martin DB5 used in the filming of Goldfinger.
While it’s not clear how long McCartney owned the car, records show it was ordered in early 1964, before the Beatles began their first world tour. McCartney specified state-of-the-art audio gear for his DB5, which at the time meant a Motorola radio and a Phillips Auto-Mignon record player. (How far we’ve come in 50 years!)
Autoweek reported that the top sellers at that London auction were a 1959 Ferrari 250 GT LWB Berlinetta “Tour de France” ($3.14 million), and a 1930 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 GS Testa Fissa ($1.25 million).
McCartney’s old Aston-Martin didn’t even set the record for a DB5 at auction; that went to a 1964 DB5 Convertible that drew a truly-impressive price of $1.01 million. Fitted with the sought-after five-speed ZF gearbox, the convertible was the second-to-last open-air DB5 built, which likely added to the car’s selling price.
To read more about, and see more pictures of, McCartney’s Aston Martin, please click
here.