21 months into a 6 month project, and finally the Aston is finished! I still don’t know how it took that long. A full on body off restoration on one of my Renaults would take only 3 months, and all I had to do on the Aston was replace the sills.
I think a lot of it was due to the special hand crafted nature of the Aston. These cars are actually quite complex. Where an A pillar repair on a Renault might just involve cutting out the rusty bit then welding in a new bit of metal and painting, the Aston V8 requires the aluminium body cutting off, and then half a dozen different panels replacing. 2 hours for the Renault vs 2 months for the Aston.
It’s the same with service items. The Renault can have new brake discs after half an hours work. Replacing the rear discs on the Aston involves dropping the differential. 30 minutes for the Renault vs 3 days for the Aston!
Before and after photos for the restoration are nonsense as all the really nice work is hidden underneath, but here they are anyway. The car seems happier now:
Before:
After:
Very few people will appreciate my 21 months of work. An MOT tester might look underneath in 20 years time and appreciate why this one hasn’t rusted like all the others. And the owner should find the structure trouble free for the rest of his ownership. Nobody else will notice any difference. But that’s not important. The important thing to me is that I restored an Aston and restored it well. There’s a lot of satisfaction to be had in that.
My therapy following the Aston is a Renault 4 restoration. Follow the progress here: Renault 4 Restoration