Is there any automaker more classy than Aston Martin? Their grand tourers are the epitome of refinement and coolness. We shall see how this British automaker has succeeded through the decades despite tough competition and financial problems.
Aston Martin started life in 1913, founded by Lionel Martin and Robert Bramford. Like most exotic automakers, it started in the racing business before shifting to road cars. They raced at Aston Hill, hence the name Aston Martin. Not much good information is available about their prewar automobiles, but it is known that the company chronically struggled financially, as it did after the war.
It would be industrialist David Brown who built modern Aston Martin after taking over in 1947. His initials “DB” would be used on most of the company’s cars and he would establish their reputation.
The first was the DB1 of 1948. It was developed during the war and used a tubular frame chassis and a 2 liter 4 cylinder engine. Only 15 were built before production ended in 1950.
The DB2 was much more successful. It was introduced at the 1950 New York Auto Show and managed to sell 411 by 1953. It was powered by a larger 2.6 liter 6 cylinder engine with dual overhead cams. It was replaced by the similar looking DB2/4, which offered a still larger 2.9 liter engine. 764 of those would be built by 1957.
The DB2/4 was replaced by the DB Mark III. This was the first use of Aston’s famous “mustache” grille. 557 would be built by 1959. A certain novelist named Ian Flemming would have one of his most famous characters drive one in a number called Goldfinger.
1958 would bring the first true recognizable Aston Martin, the DB4. It had a new 3.6 liter engine with 240 hp, a healthy amount even by modern standards. The British magazine Motor got it to go 139 mph and hit 60 in 9.3 seconds. All this came wrapped in an extremely beautiful body. But Aston was just getting started.
With the DB5 in 1963, Aston Martin built on the DB4’s beauty. It gained a larger 4 liter 6 cylinder engine that made 282 hp and could hit 60 in 8 seconds. It unfortunately was hopeless against the Jaguar E type which was just as fast, handled a lot better, and cost half as much. But the Aston would benefit from the greatest product placement in history.
Believe it or not, the most famous movie-car partnership almost never happened. The first 2 Bond movies were low budget affairs and it would not be until Goldfinger that it would become a legend. Aston Martin refused to supply E.ON with any DB5s for free. E.ON really wanted the Astons since that’s what Bond drove in the book. They went to Jaguar, who was only happy to give them E-Types. But Aston relented in the end and Sean Connery would drive a silver DB5, with license plate number BMT 216A, into history.
Q equipped the DB5 with loads of gadgets. There were machine guns, a smoke screen, bulletproof glass, an oil slick, a tracking system, and most famous of all, that ejector seat. The DB5 would reappear briefly in Thunderball, and then in Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, Casino Royale, Skyfall and Spectre.
James Bond was good for Aston, sales soared after the movie was released. Unfortunately, Aston was losing money on every single car it sold. And without Bond, we’d see the DB5 was not a good car at all. Its handling was awful, there’s no way Bond would’ve made it through those alleyways in real life without crashing, even without OddJob’s mirror trick. If he’d been driving a Jaguar, “he would’ve made it back home, with Tilly Masterson, and then there’d have been something a lot more exciting going on his pants than Goldfinger’s laser beam”. The DB5 may have looked cool, but its engine wasn’t, it frequently overheated. Its electrical components were made by Lucas, better known as the Prince of Darkness whose headlights had 3 settings: off, dim, and flicker.
In 1966, the DB5 was replaced by the DB6. From the front, you’d be hardpressed to see any changes, but from the back, you see the new roofline and rear end. It provided more headroom, improved aerodynamics, and, thanks to a longer wheelbase, more rear seat legroom. The DB6 lasted until 1970.
Aston Martin realized it could not survive on a design that dated back to 1958, so it brought out a new modern look with squared off lines and a coke bottle beltline. The DBS debuted in 1966 and in 1969, George Lazenby as James Bond would drive one in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Also in 1969, Aston Martin’s first ever V8 was ready for production. It went into a restyled DBS known as the DBS V8, which simply became the Aston Martin V8 after 1972. This car would be in production until 1990 in one form or another.
Aston Martin was entering into a messy time. In 1972, David Brown was forced to sell the highly indebted firm to a group of investors for just 101 pounds ($1623 in today’s money). In 1974, the energy crisis wrought havoc on the market for exotic cars and Aston Martin filed for bankruptcy. In 1975, it was purchased by a consortium of businessmen, including Alan Curtis, the Chairman of National Semiconductor in California. In the late 70s, the company virtually abandoned car production in favor of restoration and tuning.
Victor Gauntlett was a successful oilman who happened to have a passion for old cars. He met Curtis at the Sterling Moss benefit day in 1980. He bought a 10% stake in Aston Martin, expanding it to 50% the next year. It would be Gauntlett who nursed Aston back to health.
The company bought parts manufacturer Tickford to make Aston into a tuning firm. They produced such creations as the Tickford Ford Capri, the Capri being Europe’s Mustang. It had a turbo engine and a wood dashboard and went like stink. At the same time however, Aston Martin sales were still falling, down to just 30 by 1982. Gauntlett would make Aston Martin management his full time job and sold off his oil interests.
Gauntlett’s biggest success was putting Bond back in the Aston. In The Living Daylights, 007, played by Timothy Dalton, used an Aston Martin V8 Vantage again specially equipped by Q. It had modernized versions of the gadgets from Goldfinger, the tire shredder was replaced by a laser, and the machine guns replaced by missiles. It allowed him to get Kara Milovy out of Communist Czechoslovakia despite all the obstacles placed by the Czech police and army. Amazingly, the V8 Vantage still was a looker after 18 years, it was a timeless design.
In 1988, Ford bought Aston Martin, finally giving the company a well endowed and stable owner, at least at the time. Ford would modernize the production facilities, putting an end to the hand-built era. 1989 brought Aston’s first all new car in 20 years, the V8 Virage. Plenty of cost cutting is evident. The headlights come from an Audi 200, the taillights from a VW Scirocco, GM built the steering column, Jaguar the air conditioning system, and Ford all the instrument switches. In 1993, the more powerful Vantage arrived with muscular bodywork and a supercharged engine that produced a neck snapping 550 horsepower.
In 1994, the DB range continued with the DB7. It was beautiful and established a design language that continues to this day. In 1999, a V12 version arrived, the first ever one built by Aston. It was a 5.9 liter producing 420 horsepower.
Ford signed a product placement deal with MGM, that brought another tricked out Aston Martin, a V12 Vanquish, in 2002’s Die Another Day. A lot of people thought having a car with an invisibility cloak was a bridge too far, but 6 year old me thought it was awesome.
Aston expanded downmarket with the V8 Vantage in 2004, a less expensive supplement to the DB9 (to avoid confusion with the V8 Vantage, there was no DB8) and Vanquish.
The aforementioned product placement deal lasted for 3 movies. This meant that the new James Bond, Daniel Craig, wound up rolling a DBS a record 7 times to avoid running over Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale. The scene was filmed at the MIRA test track in Britain.
In 2007, Ford, on the brink of bankruptcy, sold Aston Martin to a consortium of investors. The Rapide was the first new product under independent ownership, unveiled in 2008. The Rapide is Aston Martin’s first 4 door car… sort of. They had produced sedans through their partner firm Lagonda, but this was the first to have the much more famous Aston badge. The car is stunning to look at, like a longer DB9.
In 2009, Aston unveiled the one-77, a bonafide hypercar with a 750 hp engine and a million dollar price tag. The name comes from the limited production run of only 77.
Aston’s biggest ever WTF moment came in 2011. They brought out a car called the Cygnet. It was a Toyota IQ with an Aston Martin badge. The IQ was a terrible car for $15,000 and it was even more terrible for $45,000. Only Aston Martin owners were allowed to buy one, the idea being that they’d need a microcar for the city in addition to their DB9s for the weekend. But everyone else correctly saw this as befouling to the Aston Martin name and it was dropped in 2013.
Since that debacle, Aston has gotten on the right path. They signed a deal with Mercedes Benz’s AMG division in 2013. In 2015, they were once again featured in a Bond movie, Spectre. They went public this year and are planning on releasing an SUV, the DBX.
Through all their mishaps, Aston Martin has remained a super cool automaker. And if the recent past is any indication, the company will be able to provide 007 with transportation for years to come.