Things in the 1980s were so bad at Aston Martin that it sold the only Bulldog it ever built to a Saudi prince in 1984. He modified it, including adding mirrors and cameras to the car, before selling it to an American businessman named William Kwech in 1987, who planned to bring it to the U.S. and make it road-legal.
However, those plans never came to fruition, and we don’t know exactly what happened to the Bulldog after that. It was seen at the 2009 Goodwood Festival of Speed and resurfaced again in 2013, participating in Aston Martin’s centenary celebrations.
In 2020, the Bulldog was bought by a new American owner, billionaire Phillip Sarofim, who commissioned a full restoration and asked that it be returned to its original condition. The car’s original dark brown and black leather upholstery was restored, for instance, after it had been changed to light tan brown.
It’s interesting to note that Richard Gauntlett oversaw the restoration of the Bulldog by UK-based Classic Motor Cars. He is the son of the Aston Martin CEO, the late Victor Gauntlett, who reluctantly ended the Bulldog project in the early 1980s.
This makes the restoration more meaningful than even other similar high-level projects, adding to the Bulldog’s already remarkable story. Classic Motor Cars needed 18 months to bring the car back to its former glory, and it won the Copa d’Oro at the 2022 Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este.
