Description
West Coast Classics are proud to present this very rare and striking 1977 Aston Martin AM V8 Series 3 Coupe matching #'s 5, 340cc DOHC V8 engine and with the desirable 5 speed ZF transmission with the most desirable 4 Weber carbs and hood bulge and in superb condition throughout!
Chassis no. V8/ 11759/ LCA
Engine no. V/ 540/ 1759/ LFM
4 x Weber Dual Throat Carburetors model
5 spd ZF Manual transmission
1 of 970 Series III's built
Striking 'Red' color over Tan leather
Original tools & spare wheel
4 Wheel Independent Suspension
4 Wheel Disc Brakes
Copies of factory build sheets
According to copies of Aston Martin's factory build records, this rare and elegant V8 Volante was hand built at Aston Martin's Newport Pagnell plant at the tail end of 1976 and delivered in January of 1977. The car was equipped with a left-hand-drive steering arrangement for the United States market and specified with the rare and desirable 5-speed ZF manual transmission. It was finished in Tudor Green Metallic over a Natural colored leather interior, Woburn Sand carpeting and a Natural headliner.
Its first owner was not recorded. A decade after being delivered, the Aston was in the garage of Ms. Margot Burrell of Dallas, Texas. Retained for three years, it would go to its next long-term owner, Arne Osborg in Dusseldorf, Germany. Mr. Osborg would retain the car for the next 21 years, regularly maintaining it as evidenced by records on file. At some point, the V8 was professionally repainted Red. The previous owner, a renown collector, acquired the car in June of 2011.
We recently acquired the car from the collection and had the car inspected and serviced at our renown marque specialists here in Los Angeles, CA in April 2024 at a cost of over $11K which included: A full tune up including new clutch master cylinder, slave cylinder & hose, new brake servo, new vacuum pump, rebuilt carbs, rebuilt steering rack, new plugs and filters, included rebuilding the alternator, cleaning the distributor cap, and replacing the battery. The car will be sold including its original spare wheel and factory tools.
Post David Brown, Aston Martin entered the most turbulent period in its history, but somehow it pulled through. Nothing epitomised the fighting spirit better than the AM V8 Coupe.
The Aston Martin V8 is a GT coupe built from 1969 to 1990. As with all traditional Aston Martins, it was entirely handbuilt with each car requiring 1, 200+ man hours to finish. From 1969 through 1972, Aston's flagship model was the DBS V8. Though the body and name was shared with the six-cylinder DBS, the V8 sold for much more. The body was a modern reinterpretation of the traditional Aston Martin look, with a squared-off grille and four headlights.
The acquisition of Aston Martin by Company Developments in 1972 brought with it a change of name for the V8-engined cars: out went DBS V8, in came AM V8. This new Series 2 was based on the DBS chassis but readily distinguishable by its restyled front which now featured two instead of four headlamps, a large hood scoop, front spoiler and recalled the looks of the earlier DB six-cylinder cars with a virtually unaltered rear end. Electronic ignition and air conditioning were now standard and Aston Martin increased the price by more than 25%!
Introduced in 1973, the Series 3 dumped the unreliable Bosch fuel injected 5340cc DBS engine and employed a quartet of Weber 42 DCNF carburetors instead of the previous Bosch mechanical fuel injection; the change bringing with it increased torque and necessitating a larger hood scoop to house the carburetor air box! Despite the switch, fuel economy improved and even in automatic-transmission form the Weber-equipped car proved almost as quick as the preceding manual version.
The result was a powerful V8 that was possibly over engineered but with the benefit of being rugged and reliable if maintained correctly. From around 1978, each engine proudly carried a brass plate, such as this particular example, with the name of the engine builder, in this instance a certain Mr Fred Waters.
This 1978 Aston Martin V8 is the last year of one of a claimed 970 Series III units produced in Newport Pagnell between 1973 and 1978. The car is a left-hand-drive unit and refinished in a super striking 'Red' color over a 'Tan' leather interior, it is powered by a 5. 3-liter V8 matched to a very rare and desirable 5 speed ZF manual transmission.
Additional equipment includes four Weber carburetors, original 15" Lagonda Alloy wheels, hood scoop, heater, and power windows and door locks. The car is equipped with speed-sensitive power steering, and stopping power is provided by four-wheel disc brakes with inboard-mounted rear units. The all aluminum twin cam Tadek Marek-designed 5. 3-liter V8 is equipped with dual overhead camshafts and four downdraft Weber carburetors. Factory rated output was 310 horsepower and 320 lb-ft of torque with blistering performance of over 160mph!
Only some 1, 600 cars were built in total during the 1969-90 5340cc V8 production run! The large, thirsty and very expensive V8 was to prove to be a rare breed with enormous appeal for collectors today for these handsome high speed British brutes and is especially desirable and collectible with the 5 speed ZF manual trans!
In 1978 a new fuel injection system developed by Weber which proved far more reliable than the earlier Bosch system, with these later '78 models having once again flat hoods without the required bulge and scoop to contain the four Weber carbs. This particular model is therefore one of the very last and most desirable Series III four Weber carb models with the hood scoop.
You will look long and hard to find a finer example of this extraordinarily striking in this rare color and penultimate year (1977) of the 4 Weber Carbs AM V8 Coupes with hood bulge/ scoop and original aluminum Tadek-Marek 5. 3L V8 engine paired with a 5 speed ZF manual transmission!
