Left-hand drive conversions for classic Astons

Aston Martin Workshop Restoration

Shahzad Sheikh
28 June 2009

It may sound a horrendously bad, not to mention sacrilegious, idea to rip up the interior of your vintage Aston Martin just to convert it to left-hand drive.

However most GCC countries will not register or allow you to drive right-hand drive cars on the public roads, even if they are classics.

And if it’s an old Aston that you hanker after to fulfil all your James Bond fantasies (circa: Sean Connery) then you have a problem. Only some 10% of Aston Martins manufactured up until the introduction of the DB7 were left-hand drive.

Fear not though, you don’t have to head down to a back-street breaker with no tools, no experience, no care but an optimistic can-do attitude to butcher your DB5.

Left-hand drive

The Aston Workshop, UK-based specialists in the marque, will do a quality conversion that maintains the original specification of the car – in fact it is claimed to be as if the car was originally made with the steering wheel on the other side.

Over the last year, the demand for conversions has apparently increased substantially particularly for DB4, 5 and 6 models, and since the beginning of 2009, more owners/collectors are having the later V8 models converted.

Following this demand, the Aston Workshop has remanufactured or stocked up on all the parts needed for conversions, including period dashboards, with the work takes just a few weeks to complete.

Find out more on wwww.aston.co.uk.

Air conditioning

Aston Martin itself also has a fully-fledged restoration service - the 'Works Service' (seen in the pictures accompanying this article) that takes cars back to shot-blasted bare metal, e-coating is applied to the chassis to protect against corrosion. Body panels are hand beaten the traditional way and they even use the same tools which originally built the car.

The Works Service also does conversions to left-hand-drive, but the best bit is that they can add a few mod-cons to the cars including, for us, vital air conditioning - understandably a popular request. They can even hide the controls to maintain the original interior appearance.

Additionally tthe engines can be converted to use modern unleaded fuel, and you can have the interior retrimmed and even add ICE systems like DVD players plus sat-nav etc. There's even a host of technical upgrades to improve the handling and performance of your vintage Aston.

So there you have it, all your classic Aston ownership dilemmas solved!

Inspired to buy a classic Aston Martin? If so, or you already have a great example in your garage, then either let us know below or email: car@carmiddleeast.com

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