Rare Aster back on the road

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If one encounters the Aster name today, it will probably beat a Veteran car event. The Paris manufacturer of proprietary engines was responsible for powering various French cars built up to the early 1910s. It’s less well-known that the Aster name was revived in 1922 in Wembley, of all places, and attached to cars of so high a quality as would have rivalled Daimler and Lanchester.

Aster

As with many expensive, high-quality cars, production was always low and it ended in 1930, three years after the company merged with Arrol-Johnston to become Arrol-Aster. Today, only two Asters survive, a charming 18/50 coupé and a rakish 1926 21/60 tourer. The tourer migrated to Australia before it passed through William Harrah’s hands and eventually returned to Britain, but by that point it was looking somewhat unspectacular, with inelegant wings, chunky artillery wheels and a general tiredness in all areas.

A restoration was started but never finished, until the present owner acquired it in 2013. He set about restoring it to its constituent parts, and has now returned it to its correct original appearance, doing justice to its status as one of the finest cars of its era.

It was task which involved not only extensive restoration but also detailed research. Zack Stiling tells the full story in his Back On The Road series in the September issue of The Automobile, available now.

Words and photographs by Zack Stiling.

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