ASTON MARTIN ( England ) 1922 to date

The original Aston Martin was built in 1914 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford, the Aston prefix deriving from the Aston Clinton hillclimb where the car had successfully competed.

This first car used an Isotta-Fraschini voiturette chassis, powered by a 1.4 litre Coventry-Simplex engine. Car production proper started in 1921, the cars having sv 1 litre 1/2 engines. More exciting developments came in 1922 when a four-cylinder 16-valve car was designed for Count Zborowski, who held the company's purse strings. Unfortunately it failed to live up to expectations on the race tracks, but became available to private customers the following year. Single cam variants were also available.

After Zborowski's death at Monza in 1924 the company struggled on until the 1925 Motor Show, but was wound up a few weeks later. At the end of 1925 Bamford and Martin Ltd. was purchased by W. S. Renwick for £6000. He had met a fellow engineer, A. C. Bertelli, at Armstrong Siddeley and they had gone on to form an engineering concern which produced just one car, the R and B. It had an ohc 1.5 litre four-cylinder engine and formed the basis of the Bertelli-designed Aston Martins up until 1936. This 1 litre1/2 model established a good competition record at Brooklands, Le Mans and the Mille Miglia, thus perpetuating the marque's sporting pedigree.

Finance was also a problem and after a brief flirtation with Frazer Nash in 1931 and later with L. Prideaux Brune, the company came under the control of R.G. Sutherland in 1933. A new 2-litre model succeeded for 1937 and although superficially resembling the smaller capacity car, it lacked the commercial and competition success.

The first Aston Martin of the post-war years had a Claude Hill-designed pushrod 2 litre engine and independent front suspension, but only a few were made before the company was taken over by the David Brown group in 1947. Experiments continued in 1948-49 the resultant cars being dubbed DBls. Meanwhile David Brown had also acquired Lagonda and the outcome of this liaison was that the dohc 2.6 litre six-cylinder engine which W.O. Bentley had designed for the post war Lagonda was fitted in a square tube space frame and entered in the 1949 Le Mans, emerging the following year as the DB2. The DB3 of 1954 was a sports-racer actively campaigned by the factory, while the Eberan von Eberhorst-designed DB3S maintained the company's sporting activities.

The DBR that followed gave Aston Martin a car with which to win Le Mans (in 1959) along with the Sports Car Constructors' Championship. However the DB4 which appeared for the 1960 season was a completely new car, having a Tadek Marek-designed all-aluminium dohc 3.7 litre engine and a platform-frame chassis, trailing link and coil rear suspension and handsome coachwork constructed on the Superleggera principle (a tubular metal cage clad in hand-fashioned aluminium).

The DB5 announced in 1963 offered a 4 litre engine with many of the troubles that had plagued the earlier DB4s ironed out, while the 1966 DB6 offered true four seater motoring coupled with sensational performance. The following year saw the DBS 6 and DBS Vantage a more expensive and powerful variant that remained in production until 1973.

A new 5.4 litre all aluminium V8 appeared in the DBS V8 of 1970, being renamed the V8 in 1972. It was also used to power the Lagonda model which reached full production status in 1978. David Brown sold out to Company Developments Ltd. in 1972 and in 1975 the company was again reconstructed by a new consortium who have succeeded in making Aston Martin profitable once again.

1967 Aston Martin DB6

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