Table of contents for Issue 32 in Vantage

THEY MIGHT have had a somewhat lonely run to P3 in the GTE Pro class at Le Mans, but AMR’s dynamite Danish driver pairing of Nicki Thiim and Marco Sørensen didn’t let that derail their challenge for the 2019-20 GT FIA World Endurance Championship, which they duly won with a safe drive to 5th place in the WEC season finale in Bahrain. Theirs was a season of exceptional form, with three GTE Pro class wins and two podium finishes, which saw the pair secure the Drivers’ title (their second, following their first title win in 2016) by 12 points, ahead of fellow AMR driver Maxime Martin, who ends the season as vice champion. Sadly, AMR customer team TF Sport just failed in their bid to win the GTE Am title,…

FOR ALMOST the entire year, motorsport was placed on hold in the UK, but as restrictions eased towards the end of the summer a small window opened to permit some racing to take place, albeit with modest grids and no spectators. Down at Goodwood, the Festival of Speed had been cancelled and the Revival was not revived but in October the Duke of Richmond hosted a clever, one-off event called SpeedWeek that rolled various speed disciplines and a race meeting into one celebratory weekend. The event, which looked and felt like a hybrid of the Members’ Meeting and the Revival, had an appropriate focus on the late Sir Stirling Moss, who enjoyed huge success at the Sussex circuit, including in a number of Aston Martins. A special Stirling Moss Memorial…

V8 memories Your piece about the V8 Vantage X-Pack in issue 31 brought to mind an article written by Phil Llewellin after he interviewed me for Supercar Classics in 1990, and particularly the part where I recalled tyre-testing a DBS V8 prototype in Italy in 1969 – probably the high point of my Aston career. For that test, since the fuelinjection engine wasn’t giving enough power, we had swapped to carburettors and built one that delivered in the region of 440bhp, the theory being to go for a high output that could then be reduced, in the interests of reliability, for production. It had larger-than-standard downdraught Webers with a one-off, double-bulge bonnet to accommodate the trumpets – the impressive noise made when that engine was ‘blipped’ had a remarkable effect…

What has it come to, you may be wondering, when Vantage resorts to road-testing a child’s car? It’s a fair question, but the DB5 Junior is both more of an Aston Martin and rather more grown-up than you might imagine. It is certainly no mere toy. In fact, after a test drive, I’m tempted to say it’s far too good to be enjoyed only by children! I have a strong feeling that parents (and grandparents) will be just as keen as their offspring to drive these machines. Maybe even race them, more of which anon… The DB5 Junior, built by the Bicester-based Little Car Company, has arrived with enthusiastic support from Aston Martin, which has licensed the use of its name and famous wings badge – not a thing it…

‘These two cars are the physical manifestation of the longest unbroken thread in Aston Martin’s long and storied history’ Burbling along the leafy lanes of Surrey in Aston Martin’s latest Roadster, I’m happily sitting in the rich, petrol-fumey wake of the glorious DB2 Drophead when the satisfying thought comes to me that together these two cars are the physical manifestation of the longest (practically) unbroken thread in Aston’s long and storied history. That of the Vantage. I won’t lie, I’m really rather envious of Andrew Frankel, whose understandably smug reflection can be glimpsed in the Drophead’s mirrors. One of the very earliest DB2s to be fitted with a Vantage-specification engine, it represents the very genesis of a name that would became one of the most evocative in the Aston Martin…

THE FIRST ASTON Martin I remember seeing was a Towns V8 Vantage X-Pack. Without question it’s where my love of Aston Martin began, but I would describe it as a marque moment, not specifically a Vantage moment. My most vivid Vantage moment was in fact more of a Zagato moment, and the car I fell for remains the most extreme expression of Vantage there has yet been. Like most of us, my connection with the V8 Zagato began in 1985 when the media went tonto after design sketches were shown at that year’s Geneva motor show. The following year Geneva witnessed the unveiling of the physical car, from which point I was fascinated by this most ugly-beautiful of Astons. It would be ten long years before I got close to…

BACK IN 2005, Aston traditionalists were slightly miffed when Ulrich Bez coined the Vantage name for the company’s new mainstream offering. I know this because I was one of the miffed. At that time, the Vantages of most recent memory had been the supercharged V600 behemoth and the V12-engined DB7, with a long tradition of the badge being used to denote the muscled-up models in the range. That all changed with Dr Bez and the VH-era AM305 Vantage; no longer the bruiser, Vantage was now the sports car in the line-up, aimed squarely at Porsche’s 911. It took a while to get our heads around that, but some things were obvious from the very start: new Vantage had a feeling of agility, a tautness of response not experienced in previous…

A young man astride a motorcycle, a family portrait, a grand house, images of Aston Martins in development… Leafing through these pages, I can’t help but feel a connection with a fellow Pole whose life has long been a source of fascination. Finally, I feel I am getting to know Tadek Marek. Every Aston Martin fan knows about Marek’s engines: the in-line six and the V8 that powered four decades of Astons. Some will be aware of his Polish origins. Rather fewer will know of his engineering background prior to being employed by Aston, of his rallying exploits, his wartime escapades or his remarkable family. Since the new, turbocharged ‘TM’ engines destined for the next generation of Aston Martin supercars are named after the great man, it seemed an appropriate…

INDIVIDUALLY they are pristine and immensely desirable Aston Martin modern historic racing cars. Together they represent one of the 21st century’s most successful GT racing dynasties. For one lucky customer they are the Vantage Legacy Collection. Commemorating Aston Martin Racing’s most successful period, this trio of Vantages is a unique, factory-built celebration of two Le Mans class victories (2014 and 2017), seven FIA World Endurance Championship titles, plus a host of British GT, GT World Challenge and European Le Mans Series titles. The three were all created in Aston Martin Racing’s workshops, built from the tyres up using fresh tubs and all-new parts. As such they have covered zero racing miles and possess no racing history, but, thanks to shifts in today’s Historic racing categories, they would be eligible for…

WHEN ASTON MARTIN signed a technology sharing deal that gave Mercedes a five per cent stake in the company back in 2013 it brought obvious benefits, but also a substantial caveat. Aston got access to the sonorous AMG 4.0-litre V8 to widespread praise. But it also adopted the Mercedes-specific version of Bosch’s in-car electronic architecture, an apparently small change that would make it very hard for Aston to switch horses and collaborate with any other large carmaker. The weakness of that negotiating position was reflected in the new deal announced at the end of October. Daimler is now set to take a 20 per cent stake in Aston Martin, not in return for a cash injection, but rather for allowing the smaller company deeper access to Merc technology and powertrains.…

SINCE 2020 has been bewildering from start to finish, it seems fitting that recent Market Watch columns now appear to be part of a strange and prolonged campaign of disinformation. Fitting, but irritating, too, and we should bring you up to date with the results of some sales that had to be moved from their original dates. The most impressive small collection of Astons to come to market in a long time was finally offered by Gooding & Co on September 5 at Hampton Court Palace, as part of this year’s Concours of Elegance – the first major car event to be held in the UK after Lockdown 1. A socially distanced crowd hovered close to a roped-off, peony-red 1961 DB4 GT Zagato for much of the day, but when…

If only we could have been there to witness it. Instead, thanks to Covid restrictions, essential race team and circuit personnel were the only people who could attend this year’s postponed Le Mans 24 Hours. More’s the pity, as Aston Martin Racing’s assault on the race was a spectacular success; the centrepiece to the marque’s greatest season of international motorsport since 1959. A compressed qualifying format consisting of two single sessions (instead of the more usual three sessions in previous years) saw AMR’s #95 and #97 Vantages line up in P3 and P4. Meanwhile, in GTE Am, AMR’s #98 Vantage just pipped privateer squad TF Sport’s #90 car, the pair starting P4 and P5 in class. Trading its traditional mid-June weekend for a late-September slot presented teams with fresh challenges.…

The MIRA test track had opened in 1948 but by the end of the 1950s it was clear that Britain’s automotive industry needed a purpose-built wind tunnel. MIRA was instructed to research, design and build the world’s first, in collaboration with aircraft manufacturers and scale-model tunnels. The full-size MIRA tunnel was – and still is – dominated by four Avro Lincoln aircraft propellers, each driven by a 325hp electric motor, mounted on a steel A-frame on a concrete foundation. The vehicle sits on a large turntable, which transmits the forces acting upon it into load-cells, which thereby measure drag, lift and side-force, as well as pitch, yaw and roll. Having worked only with scale models in tunnels such as Vickers’ for the DB3S coupés and the DBR1, the first Aston…

AFTER THE DB2 in Vantage tune, Aston Martin put the Vantage name back on the shelf for a while. It wouldn’t gather dust for long, though. It was too good a name not to use again, particularly when Aston wanted to ginger up sales of its DB4. So, what constitutes a Vantage in a DB4 context? Within a year of the DB4’s launch, the shorter, lighter, two-seat GT version was revealed, with its twin-plug, Weber-equipped six. Around 12 or 15 ‘regular’ DB4s were also fitted with this engine, but these are not Vantages. From chassis 251 onwards, the standard DB4 could also be had with a ‘Special Series’ engine, which came with three SU carburettors rather than the standard two. And it was this engine that in 1961 formed the…

EARLY LAST YEAR, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of its launch, I drove a DB7 Vantage from the Bloxham factory where it was built, out onto the roads on which it was developed and signed off. And despite the fact that I’m more than old enough to remember going on the original launch in 1999, the car still took me entirely by surprise. It’s one of those quiet cars, one that can slip the slender restraints of memory if you’re lucky enough to have driven cars for a living for three decades. You might say that’s a strange thing to write about a gorgeous British coupé directing V12 power through a manual gearbox to the rear wheels alone, but please don’t, I’ll only feel more ashamed. What little recollection I…

So, what do we have here then? At a quick glance, you’d probably guess AM V8, the model that replaced the DBS V8 when David Brown sold Aston Martin in 1972. Same frontal treatment, same single headlights either side of the reshaped black mesh grille. But look again and you notice that it’s running on chrome-plated wire wheels. Surely all AM V8s had solid alloys… Look closer still and you’ll notice that it’s wearing ‘David Brown Aston Martin’ wings on its nose and tail and ‘Vantage’ badges on its side-spars. At which point you might be forgiven for scratching your head and wandering off for a nice cup of tea. Lift the vast, front-hinged bonnet and the answer begins to emerge. Nestled in the engine bay is not the 5.3-litre…

Despite being a seven-figure limited edition, the DB5 Goldfinger Continuation is instantly familiar. Not for nothing has the original, which starred alongside Sean Connery in the 1964 film that marked James Bond’s third cinematic outing, been described as the most famous car in the world. The new car’s relationship to the original couldn’t be clearer – it is, as close as possible, a facsimile of the movie car. But the decision to build it as Aston’s third Continuation model was influenced in large part by a car that, although outwardly similar, was much smaller, cheaper and manufactured in vastly greater numbers – the Corgi diecast model inspired by the film car. The pocket-money replica was the one that truly popularised 007’s weapons and defences to an audience often too young…

WORK CONTINUES apace at R-Reforged’s Warwick HQ, where, in addition to building customer Callum Vanquish 25s (issue 31), work has now begun on building the first V12 Zagato Heritage Twins. Based on the V12 Vantage S, just 19 pairs of the Zagato-styled Coupés and Speedsters will be built. They feature bespoke carbonfibre body panels, new tailor-made interiors, active aerodynamics, extensive weight reductions and comprehensive chassis and powertrain upgrades, with 600bhp on tap. Dynamic development of the cars will ramp up early in the new year, together with a programme of durability testing. As we learned first-hand in our drive of the Callum Vanquish 25, R’s engineering lead Adam Donfrancesco and his team take great pride in sweating the details. Knowing what they achieved with the Vanquish, and that they are…

The images you see here are taken from a new book, Racing Through Europe, a celebration of the life and photography of Brian Joscelyne. The book is by no means just about Le Mans, nor only about Astons, though Aston Martin did figure particularly prominently in Brian’s life. At its heart is the most wonderfully evocative collection of images and recollections from what feels almost like a different world, before motorsport became overtly corporate, when the amateur spirit still prevailed, when you could get close to the cars, the drivers and the mechanics. And few got closer than Brian Kent Joscelyne. In the summer of 1957, freshly released from National Service, Brian accompanied his parents and brother on holiday to France to take in the 24 Hours. Best of all,…

If, in the automotive arena, there was ever a tiny acorn from which a mighty oak was to grow, surely it is the Vantage. Today Vantage is an entire model-line, an indication of Aston Martin’s most sporting products and even the title of a magazine. But it’s much more even than that: without Vantage there’d almost certainly have been no Volante, Virage, Vanquish, Valkyrie… the list of names spawned by the first Aston Martin ‘V’ car is long indeed. Yet 70 years ago it was merely a line on a delivery docket, denoting only a raised compression ratio (from 6.5 to 8.16:1) and larger SU HV6 carburettors for DB2 engines whose owners ticked the right box on the options list. For although the name appears only to have found its…

THE LAST THING the supercharged Vantage needed was more power, but rounding up its outputs to 600bhp and 600lb ft kind of made the point. The V600’s engine mods were the smaller part of an extensive overhaul concentrated on the chassis, brakes and gearbox, a transformation subtly signalled by flat grey alloys, chrome around the grille and a neat ‘Works Prepared’ enamel badge. The badge depicted the Newport Pagnell buildings and the V600 was backed into a parking space under the canopy of one of those very buildings when I collected the key. This was a big deal because evo would be the first magazine to drive it and this exclusive would strengthen the critical launch issue. Some weeks earlier, in August 1998, a few of us had been in…

You can’t choose your parents, nor can you choose the cars that you travel in during your formative years. In my case it all started with my parents’ 1932 Aston Martin standard saloon, chassis number L2/221. Now, this story will not be peppered with chassis numbers, but we’ll come back to that one later and with good reason. It was in L2/221 that your correspondent made his very first journey, from hospital to home, in the winter of 1956. AGX 747 wasn’t quite my father Alan’s first Aston. Winding the clock back even further to 1953, my mother had been dropped off at the same hospital to deliver my brother Jeff. In those days, fathers were actively discouraged from being anywhere near a birth. It was while the midwife was…

Lockdown two is different from lockdown one. As this is written on the auspicious date of Friday 13 November, most garage-based businesses are continuing to function more-or-less normally. That includes Classic Motor Cars in Bridgnorth, where work continues apace on the restoration of Aston Martin’s 1980 one-off concept supercar and monument to the Angular Period of William Towns’ designs, the Bulldog ‘The showroom doors are locked,’ says CMC managing director Nigel Woodward, ‘but we have sold some cars online. And since your last update, when we were still in the throes of restoring the chassis, there have been some major steps. ‘The integral roll-cage that we designed is now fitted. There was just weak U-section steel there before, so we wanted to add as much safety as we could. Rigidity,…

The passing of Sir Sean Connery in October triggered an appropriate slew of tributes and obituaries, and as often as not they were accompanied by the image above. You’ll have seen it many times before, but we make no apologies for reproducing it once again. The glamour, the danger, the timeless cool of early Bond are woven tightly into the Aston DNA, and it’s all encapsulated right here in a single frame. The shot was one of a number used to publicise Goldfinger on its cinema release in autumn 1964. It was taken by an uncredited stills photographer in a break during filming on the Furka Pass, just outside Realp in the Swiss Alps in early summer, and it showed Connery’s Bond and Aston’s DB5 to be perfectly matched. The…