Someone Abandoned An Aston Martin DB4 50 Years Ago And Now It's For Sale

Forget barn finds; they’re so cliché. We’ve moved on to woodland finds, if this sorry-looking old Aston Martin DB4 is anything to go by.

Somehow this amazing piece of British sports car history has spent the last five decades sitting out in the open air beneath the treetops of woodland in Massachusetts, despite it being parked at the owner’s home since the early 1970s.

But now the auctioneers have put a price of as much as £385,000 on its head – and that’s before it gets the full restoration that it needs.

It was built in 1960, two years after the DB4 was launched, before being shipped to the US where its first owner awaited, but it’s not clear whether that is the same owner who parked it on his property and left it there for decades. It seems that the woodland has actually grown around it, blocking it in.

It has been removed from the wood and put into storage, but its rusty metalwork betrays its sad history. The once leaf-strewn engine bay has been cleaned out, but no proper work has actually been started.

The DB4 had a 3.7-litre straight-six that put out around 240bhp, and it was the first car to manage the 0-100-0mph test in less than 30 seconds.

The Worldwide Auctions sale in Scottsdale, Arizona, is happening just one day before and eight miles from the RM Sothebys auction featuring the last ever Bugatti Veyron Coupé. Looks like some serious money is going to be changing hands in Arizona that week.