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Inside the Aston Martin Heritage Trust, the company's secret museum

The Aston Martin Heritage Trust Museum has been in existence since 2002. It houses the official archives of the Aston Martin Lagonda Company, as well as those of the Aston Martin Owners Club, at the behest of which the Museum was founded back in 1998. It also houses a rotating collection of distinctive and historically significant Aston Martin vehicles, cherry picked from a century of the automaker's exquisite existence. Unfortunately for those besotted with the brand, as I am, the AHMT is located on the periphery of the exurbs of nowhere, in a restored 14th century barn on a dirt road, blocks off the river in the wee Midlands village of Drayton St. Leonard. An address is not published. The only indication that you might be in the right place is an almost intentionally innocuous government tourism placard, placed somewhat near the turnoff. "We used to maybe get a hundred visitors a year before they put up the sign," says AMHT Curator Donna Bannister, an American of equally mysterious provenance. "Now we get almost a hundred per month." Lucky are the souls who find the AMHT (my cabby wasn't among them; I had to walk a bit), because it houses, in its cramped Middle Aged quarters, some real treasures. Greeting me when I entered was a bare-metal-nosed 1921 A3, the oldest existing Aston Martin in the world, which was bought at auction in 2000 and restored to driving condition via the generous underwriting of Sheik Nasser of Kuwait, who is apparently a huge AM collector. "It won Kop Hill in 1923," Bannister says. "We recently took it back there, and to the Windsor Concours d'Elegance. Of course the Royals are big fans of the Aston brand." There's also a 1934 Ulster BLB 684, the only remaining one in a 2+2 configuration. This car is a driver as well. "Club members can hire it out," Bannister says. "Though because it's quite difficult to drive – it has the clutch in the center, and the gas and brake on either side – only a few do." There is a passel of more recent notables, like the 2000 V12 Vanquish cutaway, an auto show maquette meant to demonstrate the fruits of Ford's huge investment in the brand at the start of this century. There's a pre-production, gloss white 2013 Vanquish Volante, which was used for photos and promotion as well, but never registered due to some inconsistencies in the paint. There are display engines from the DB4GT, the Lagonda V8, and the twin-supercharged Vantage (swoon!).

This Aston Martin DBS has lived in a barn since 1986

For a moment, think of every major event that has occurred in your life since 1986 (if you're old enough, of course). Many birthdays have come and gone, children have grown to become adults, and we went from listening to "Rock Me Amadeus" to well... Justin Bieber. In a nutshell, things have changed quite a bit, but not for everything. In 1986, this Aston Martin DBS was rolled into a barn and locked safely away from prying eyes, and for the last 30 years, that is exactly where it has remained, until now. The dusty yet gorgeous Aston will cross the Silverstone Auctions block in May, where it's expected to fetch upwards of GBP60,000 (about $87,000). New in 1968, it would have cost about GBP4,470. RELATED: See More Photos of this Barn Find Aston Martin DBS Few words can describe the emotional weight of these barn find images, but "haunting" seems to fit. The Aston's three decades of shed isolation have written their story across its fastback bodywork, which now comes layered thick with dust, dirt, and a spot of bird dirt or two. Peer beneath the grime though and the DBS still wears its original coat of Mink Bronze paint. Inside the grand tourer's cabin, time has stood equally still, however the elements have been a bit less fair. The rich leather front seats and upholstery have grown grey and mottled with age. And while no one has sat in the back seat of this DBS for ages, it would appear critters haven't long given up roost there. Even so, it's utterly jaw-dropping to see in its untouched state. RELATED: Check Out James Bond's Actual 1964 Aston Martin DB5 According to the auction house, the Aston Martin was sold new on November 5th, 1968, to its first owner in Surrey, England, who held onto it for a little under two years. In April 1970, the DBS passed to its second owner—a 'Mr. Pasqua'—who relocated the car to the island of Jersey (the largest of the UK's Channel Islands). For the next 16 years it would accumulate a scant number of miles before getting tucked away in a barn on the island, and to this day, the odometer reads just 30,565 miles driven. Then again, how far can you really drive on an island that's only five miles wide and eight miles long. RELATED: This '66 Porsche Barn Find Looks Ravishing in Red As for its model history, the DBS was the rather radical successor to the storied and much more sweeping Aston Martin DB6.

Aston Martin DB11 gets back to work at the Nurburgring

The Aston Martin DB9 has been around for over a decade now. Classic though its styling may be, that means it's ripe for replacement. Fortunately that's just what Aston Martin is working on, as you can see from these latest spy shots. Snapped undergoing development at the notoriously grueling Nurburgring, this prototype appears to have ditched the camouflage worn by the last one we saw in favor of the black body cladding from our earlier shots. That makes it tough to tell anything about its final design, but if precedent proves anything, it ought to be pretty striking once the production bodywork is put in place. The new DB11 (or whatever it's ultimately called) is being built on a new platform that's set to replace Aston's long-serving VH architecture that has adapted over the years but essentially dates back to the V12 Vanquish that debuted way back in 2011. Aston is expected to keep using its even longer-serving 6.0-liter V12 engine on certain models, but the new DB11 is more likely to get the new twin-turbo V8 being built for it by Mercedes-AMG.