Also you lose almost nothing in terms of way the car drives for it being a convertible. Being based on a ladder chassis rather than a spaceframe, the body has no structural role to play, so it doesn’t shake like an over-excited puppy when you cut the roof off and it doesn’t need additional chassis reinforcement just to stop it wobbling. Which means there’s no great weight gain. It handles like a MkIII should handle, and should its owner be sneaky enough to slip a gentle limited slip differential between the rear wheels, even the car’s chief dynamic foible – a tendency to spin the inside rear tyre at the exit of slow corners, especially in the wet – can be neatly side-stepped without any discernible increase in understeer.
It is to be remembered that the first Aston Martin used by the world’s least secret agent was not a DB5 in the Goldfinger film, but a DB MkIII in the Goldfinger book, even if Ian Fleming committed the capital crime of calling it a DBIII. It is, to be honest, a much more suitable mode of transport for 007, far more exciting and rewarding than a DB5.
But would you have yours open or closed? That’s tough: I reckon the MkIII Drophead comes as close as any I know to being a convertible you might choose over a coupe and for purely recreational purposes it’s probably the better car. But for its proportions and unimprovable silhouette in profile, I’d probably still have the coupe. Just. But either would be a dream.
Photos courtesy of RM Sotheby’s.