002 | The Name’s Lacey. Andy Lacey.
‘He drank and smoked – black tobacco – heavily. Cussed a lot. Wore cowboy boots sometimes. He was flamboyant, wild, a very “out there” kind of character. Everyone loved Andy’.
The DB5’s first owner, Price Ansell ‘Andy’ Lacey, and an unknown companion on one of the superb Lipizzan horses that Andy bred in Spain.
It wasn’t ONLY SCHOOLBOYS who were seduced by the whole Bond/DB5 thing. Grown men, too, fell under its spell. Price Ansell Lacey – ‘Andy’ to everyone who knew him well – was an American, originally from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but living in Earls Court, London, in the early 1960s. He was in his mid-30s, a successful businessman who’d already made a sizeable fortune marketing and distributing encyclopedias – enough to buy properties in Spain and South Africa. He was also something of a womaniser and an adventurer, as we shall see.
ANDY LACEY SAW GOLDFINDER AT A LONDON CINEMA AND WAS INSTANTLY SEDUCED BY THE FANTASY OF THE DAPPER AGENT WITH HIS LICENCE TO KILL and his Anglo-Italian sports car. He loved the film, but most of all he loved 007’s Aston Martin. ‘I want one of those cars,’ he declared and headed straight for the nearest Aston showroom to buy a DB5. One can imagine he wasn’t best pleased when he learned it would be several months before the order could be fulfilled – that’s handbuilt English sports cars for you – but not to be deterred he placed his order. IN JULY 1965, DB5/226/L WAS COMPLETE AND ANDY LACEY TOOK DELIVERY – paying the balance with his American Express card.
It wasn’t uncommon for left-hand-drive cars to be registered in the UK. According to Tim Cottingham, registrar for the Aston Martin Owners Club, they were often bought by American servicemen. ‘They would use them in Europe for a bit then ship them back home, avoiding punitive import taxes. It was a very neat idea. They often accumulated lots of miles very quickly on fancy European tours.’ DB5/2266/L WOULD CERTAINLY DO THAT AND MUCH MORE BESIDES. Specifying left-hand drive would suggest that Andy Lacey planned for the car to finish up in the States, but in fact it would also be ideal for the European road trips that he’d be undertaking.
The original build sheet for 2266/L.
September 1965, in which time 899 coupés were built (plus 123 convertibles). Of those, JUST 220 WERE LEFT-HAND DRIVE, THE VAST MAJORITY OF WHICH WERE DESTINED FOR NORTH AMERICA. White (or ‘Platinum’ on Aston Martin’s colour chart) was a popular choice for cars bound for sunnier climes. Fifty-seven DB5s had the striking white coachwork – although the Owners’ Club knows that at least 23 have since been repainted in another colour (no prizes for guessing that most end up in 007-spec Silver Birch). DB5/2266/L came with black Connolly ‘Vaumol’ leather trim and a long list of extras (or Particulars of Non-Standard Equipment, as Aston Martin rather charmingly put it): as well as the Normalair air-conditioning, these included front seat belts, a Bosch Köln TR radio with power-operated aerial, heated rear screen, Fiamm horns with ‘town’ and ‘country’ modes, and twin Marchal foglamps. It also had two detachable headrests, which, along with the air con, were generally viewed as ‘must-have’ options for cars destined for the States. Oh, and it was fitted with whitewall tyres, just like George Harrison’s car. SO THIS WAS A VERY SPECIAL CAR AND A REAL HEADTURNER, riding on gleaming chrome wire wheels with those Avon Turbospeed whitewalls. One can well imagine Andy Lacey cutting quite a dash around town in his new Aston. In fact he lived a life almost as glamorous and adventure-filled as Bond himself – and many of those adventures would now involve the DB5, with Europe as his playground. And he didn’t stop there – HE ALSO HAD THE DB5 SHIPPED TO SOUTH AFRICA ABOARD THE CARGO SHIP JAGERSFONTEIN for when he was staying at his property in Johannesburg. Indeed, while based there he would travel widely in the Aston – including the near-1000-mile trek to Cape Town. We know all this because he kept a log of each journey, so that we can see exactly where he refuelled on these adventures. Le Mans, Cherbourg, La Guardia, Malaga, Jo’berg, Bloemfontein… So what was Andy Lacey like? In fact, while he enjoyed the Bond association, the man he identified with most was American-born Ernest Hemingway. The journalist, novelist and adventurer famously lived life to the full. He was also passionate about Spain and its culture – as was Andy – and married four times – as was Andy. In Andy Lacey’s case, it was with his fourth wife, Karen, that he finally found his soulmate. They were married for almost 20 years and even after they separated they stayed close, right up to Andy’s death in 2008.
Karen Lacey today is a successful writer and publisher, but in 1981 she was a young woman who had recently come to England from America in search of an adventure of her own – and met the flamboyant Andy in a London pub. ‘He was 54, I was 21. I was a baby,’ she says. ‘I was escaping – escaping America. I needed to live overseas, I needed an adventure. HE WAS THIS EXCITING, CHARMING ADVENTUROUS RACONTEUR. HE DREANK AND SMOKED - BLACK TOBACCO - HEAVILY. CUSSED A LOT. Wore cowboy boots sometimes. He was flamboyant, wild, a very “out there” kind of character. Everyone loved Andy. They married in 1985 and had spells living in Australia and South Africa. ‘His modus operandi was to make a bunch of money, then spend it, have an adventure, run out of money, then make some more,’ she recalls. ‘He had large teams of people go out and sell encyclopedias and other books – and he would do that in South Africa and Zimbabwe, and all over Europe.’But Andy’s spiritual home, as with Hemingway,was Spain. ‘He had a farm in southern Spain, built among Moorish ruins, where he raised Lipizzan horses, and a beach house too.
Typically (for Aston) haphazard service record. Final entry almost certainly not this car.
‘THERE’S THE PHOTO OF ANDY FROM AROUND THE TIME HE HAD THE ASTON, ON A BEAUTIFUL LIPIZZAN, IN FULL RIDING REGALIA, with an English woman – I assume they were having an affair of some sort! ‘He loved bullfighting. He be friended bullfighters, became part of that community. His daughter actually helped inaugurate the new bullring at Algeciras. She was about 12, rode in on her Lippizan, which knelt in front of the president. Amazing…’ So much did Andy Lacey love bullfighting that occasionally the Aston’s log would include a sidenote about a particular contest. ‘Jose Muchacho today got two ears and a tail,’ recorded one entry, referring to the ultimate accolade that could be awarded to a matador. ’BUYING THE ASTON STRAIGHT AFTER SEEING THE MOVIE WAS TYPICAL OF ANDY’S SPONTANEITY,’ Karen continues. ‘He didn’t have the Aston by the time I met him. But he often spoke about it. He really loved that car – more than any other. ‘He told me how once he was driving in France with a bunch of crazy friends, and they were driving as fast as they could down the freeway and THEY WERE PASSING A BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE FROM ONE CARE TO THE OTHER. ‘Once he was driving through South Africa as fast as he could and hit this giant lizard called a leguaan and the car became airborne – fortunately he was able to regain control when it landed…’ Unsurprisingly, given the distances it was covering, Andy’s hard driving style and the often punishing road and weather conditions, the DB5 was far from faultless. He would habitually carry Aston Martin’s factory-supplied Continental Touring Kit, which comprised belts, hoses, fuses, even a spare head gasket, but some things couldn’t be fixed at the roadside, and the car was returned to Newport Pagnell on at least one occasion to have a new rear axle fitted. STILL IN A LITTLE OVER FOUR YEARS, ANDY LACEY CLOCKED UP A REMARKABLE 62,000 MILES – and then decided his DB5 adventure was over and it was time to sell DB5/2266/L. It was bought by Alvin Lopez, a fellow American and a NASA employee, who was stationed in Zaragoza in Spain at the time. And when Lopez’s stint in Europe came to an end in 1970, he decided to have the Aston shipped over to the States. THE DB5 WAS FINALLY MAKING THE JOURNEY IT HAD BEEN DESTINED TO MAKE from the moment it rolled off the production line at Newport Pagnell.
