Man tried everything to revive flood-damaged Aston Martin bought from Florida salvage auction and there was only one option left
- An American YouTuber has been trying to revive a flood-damaged Aston Martin
- The V12 DBS had water up to the floor line, corroding its main electrics module
- A small $10 chip was the only component that could revive the Aston DBS
Published on Feb 08, 2025 at 9:00 PM (UTC+4)
by Henry Kelsall
Last updated on Feb 07, 2025 at 2:06 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Tom Wood
American YouTuber Samcrac has been attempting to revive and save a flood-damaged V12 Aston Martin DBS.
The final component to be tested is a $10 microcontroller, which could save the Aston Martin from the junkyard.
The YouTuber bought the DBS from a South Florida salvage auction for $28,000.
At the time, it seemed like a good deal, but first impressions can be deceiving.
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The waterline was low, and the dipstick only had oil on it; there was no water present
The car itself was also in pretty good condition, having been a garage queen most of its life.
However, the DBS proved reluctant to come back to life. That left Samcra with some more digging to do.
A Volvo junction box module was thought to be the main problem
The YouTuber explains that he believed that a Volvo junction box that was badly salt-corroded was the principal stopping block for the supercar.
Since the part was relatively cheap on eBay, Samcrac ordered one for $50 for his Aston Martin.
The next step was to strip away the interior components destroyed by salt water and find the electronics that needed restoring or replacing. All that Samcrac could initially do, however, was get the alarm to sound continuously.
This was due to a security mismatch between the new module and the Aston Martin, so the YouTuber needed to buy a new module with no affiliation to a previous car.
Module cloning was the next step for the Aston Martin
The next step was to ship the original module off to a company that could extract the data from it.
That way, the car’s data could be transferred to a new module. This is where the microchip comes into play, as that is what holds the car’s data.
Fellow restorer Fadi Koka was tasked with this, as he had recently revived a flood-damaged Aston Martin Rapide by cloning the module.
While some data was extracted, it was not enough. Thus, the new module would need to be ‘flashed’ with an Aston Martin tool.
Sadly, despite looking for this and attempting to order an Aston Martin configuration file, Samcrac was never able to revive the car. In the end, He had to sell it, but he did get its value back, as it sold for $28,500.
