1930 Aston Martin International: Chassis S37!

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1930 Aston Martin International: Chassis S37!

Another sing along, folks! Oh, you pretty Chitty Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, we love you, and, our, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, loves us too…

Who here doesn’t remember Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the famous Dick Van Dyke flick from 1968, based on characters created by Ian Fleming (yes the Bond guy) about a washed out inventor who manages to restore a broken down Grand Prix car and fly it off-shore to rescue his grandfather, accompanied by his kids and the Truly Scrumptious Sally Ann Howes?

Well, guess what. Fact definitely is stranger than fiction, as we’re about to discover in this latest classic car owners post, brought to you in collaboration with Car Facts Disc, where Mark Donoghue’s 80-year-old father took up his son’s challenge to fully restore a 1930 Aston Martin “International” Chitty style in time to show it at the Concours of Elegance 2020, where it won the Aston Martin Prize. Wow.

From humble beginnings in 1929 to being disassembled in 1963 and finally making an epic come back in 2020, here’s Chassis S37’s journey to glory.

The looooong, long road to restoration: first spell

*“Introduced at the 1929 Motorshow, the ‘International’ was based on the Aston Martin Team Cars. The First in the LM series”.*

*“Chassis S37 was taken off the road by its previous owner in 1954 and disassembled in 1963, but he sadly died in 2016 before he had a chance to rebuild it”*

The looooong, long road to restoration: The challenge

“I acquired many boxes of nuts and bolts in 2016. Even the speedometer had been stripped down to its most basic components, with the clock face and internal workings completely disassembled and in a small box”

“My father offered to reassemble the car. “Knock yourself out!” I said, expecting him to give up after a few months. He’s 80 years old! The remit was to keep it original and just put the car back together as it was when it was taken apart in 1963. I was keen not to make the car look like an overly ostentatious restoration and insisted that the patina should be preserved wherever possible”.

The looooong, long road to restoration: And voila!

“Remarkably, he completed the challenge a few weeks ago (July 2020)”.

“And here we are at the Concours of Elegance 2020 at Hampton Court Palace”

Onwards

It’s incredibly inspiring to see how Mark’s 80-year-old father put this beauty of an International together after it was effectively written off in the 60s.

The lesson here? Next time your 50-something-year-old father complains about creaking joints and old age, show him this article, and those joint pains will vanish A-stat!

This story wouldn’t have been possible without Car Facts Disc. If you’ve got a car with a story worth telling, be it modern or classic, consider getting yourself one!

Until the next time folks.

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