The Cliveden House Hotel, about 30 miles outside of London, has been chosen by RM Sotheby’s as the venue for an impressive auction of collector cars to be held on Wednesday, June 12. Among some British, German, French, and Italian automotive gems is a rare 1965 Aston Martin DB5 Convertible , believed to be the second-to-last built in a production run comprising only 123 examples from 1963 through 1965. The DB5 model, which debuted in 1958 as a coupe, was not only the successor to the DB4 but could be considered the latter’s ultimate iteration.

It was replaced in 1966 by the less-elegant DB6 , which soldiered on until 1971, when the “modern” DBS took the reigns as Aston Martin’s flagship. Of all the DBs (named for the company’s then-owner David Brown), the DB5 is at the top of the marque’s collector-car pyramid. The DB5 really hit the sweet spot, its shape defining the quintessential Aston Martin with a design language born in Italy, not the U.

K. That model’s predecessor, the DB4, was created by Carrozzeria Touring of Milan, embodying a vision far afield from the pragmatic “style” that characterized most British cars of the era. It employed Touring’s patented Superleggera body using lightweight aluminum panels formed over a delicate steel-tube skeleton, itself welded to a platform chassis.

Although the design for the body and chassis of the DB4 and DB5 were Italian in origin, the cars themselves were fabricated at Aston Martin’s Newport Pagnell factory .