Car Guy Magazine Car Guy Magazine Issue 215 | Page 25

Arnolt was smitten with the coachbuilder’s work, and he
filled his showroom with Bertone bodied chassis and mechanicals from MG, Bristol, Bentley and Aston Martin.
Among the more obscure Arnolt vehicles were the Bertone
Aston Martins, based on the DB2-4.
RESTORING HISTORY
Ponder’s example was the first Arnolt Aston Martin delivered stateside. Propelling the convertible coupé was a 2.6
liter twin-cam six churning out 125 horses. Its long elegant
body is finished in rich maroon with a red interior trimmed
in beige piping. Ponder sunk more than $175,000 in the
restorative project in an effort to approach its original luster
– or, more likely, exceed it.
“It’s not something you’d want to, with the restoration
I’ve put into it, take out and drive 1,000 miles in the countryside, rocks kicking up on it,” says Ponder. “It’d break your
heart.”

Ponder says he has no idea what the original color was.
He has been unable to locate color photographs of the
original car and there was no color designation on the build
sheets.
“But definitely, it probably wasn’t red,” says Kevin Kay
of Kevin Kay Restorations, an eight-man classic car refurbishing operation in Redding, California, that caters to
British and European cars with a particular focus on Aston
Martins. Kay says his personal fascination with the car is its
pedigree. “To me it’s that whole history of those guys having
commissioned the car and giving it to Ward as a present,”
he says. “That’s what identifies that car; that plaque and that
story and the whole nine yards.”

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