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JEZEBEL UNCOVERED IN WHYTELEAFE

We've all done it - been given a valuable gift for a special birthday, which doesn't quite fit with our lifestyle but ought to be kept. So it goes in a cupboard and then gets "discovered" many years later - frankly a bit worse for wear, but still with that intrinsic value intact.

 

With Jon Free, the gift was a little too big for a cupboard - his Father's Aston Martin DB3 Drophead had been a family fixture since the mid-1960s. Given the car as a 21st birthday present in 1992, risk of accident damage on regular commutes to London, together with spiralling insurance costs meant the car was parked in the front garden under the protection of a heavy tarpaulin - and there it remained until this March.

 

The car had been bought by Dr Free (Jon's father) to replace a much loved, but sadly written-off AC Bristol convertible. This AC had been finished in Svezia Red and had been christened Jezebel after the 1950's Frankie Lane hit.

 

Still in its original Snow Shadow Grey with a black hood when Dr Free bought it, the Aston was soon resplendent in Svezia Red - thanks to a special order with AC in Thames Ditton - and re-christened Jezebel 2. A matching roof in Svezia arrived in 1968, just as the family set off for the USA, where Dr Free's job had taken them.

 

Delayed by a dock strike in New York until 1969, the car became a regular at race meets and Aston Martin Owners Club (AMOC) events in the US, as well as a traffic stopper when driven in the streets of New York City.

 

Home with the family in 1978, the car continued to be a regular at AMOC events in the UK and was pictured in stunning line-ups with a DB1 and other Feltham Classics.

 

A natural inquisitiveness led Philip Jones of Byron International to ask what was under the tarpaulin, when he saw it in a Whyteleafe house front garden in the early 1990s. Contact has been maintained with the family ever since and Byron International was the obvious choice to help with marketing the car, when the covers finally came off recently.

  

What was revealed was a picture of rather faded glory, but at the same time a vision of the opportunity which this remarkable car offers. A car which has the foundations of a restoration that, whether carried out by an enthusiast or a professional, will be rewarded with an outstanding car, with a heart-warming story and true provenance.

 

Enquiries should be addressed to:

Philip Jones of Byron International

Tel:+44(0)1737244567

Email: [email protected]

:: Photos are available.

 

 

 

 

[Press release distributed by CDWrite on behalf of Byron International. To unsubscribe from all CDWrite email lists, reply with "STOP" as the subject line]

 

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