Favourite Aston Martin?

[socram]

DB4 Gt Zagato for me too
Project 212

Takes me back to September 1973. I went to work for someone with a DBS Vantage. That is the one without the chrome grille, but with Vantage 6 engine and wire wheels.

He had paid 6,500GBP for it and I had to take it to Leeds for its 3,000 mile service. Bearing in mind I drove a Mini at the time, and had never ever driven an automatic before, I think you can imagine how I felt, picking up this enormous supercar, in the rush hour, in the middle of the city... Later on, got up to 100mph, and the acceleration from then to 120mph was staggering! I backed off as the fuel gauge was visibily moving, and I hadn't got much cash...

Less than a year later, I had to take it to the auctions down south. It eventually sold for 4,200GBP - so the depreciation was more than my wage...

Anyone know what happened to it, Maroon, OUG 620 L?

[Mudbug]

Was the James Bond one a DB4? I had the model as a kid with the man flying out the ejector seat.

[GBRM]

Great thread; obviously I'm a bit biased but a V8 Aston; road or race car - Dad owned the original factory/press V8.

The V8 would be closely followed by a DBR4 Grand Prix car, the first car I remember seeing my Dad race.

Thirdly would be a DB4, especially after finding one for Dad to race in the '80s and the enjoyment he had racing them and the technology that subsequently went into it, especially from F1 people, no names mentioned.

I'd love an Aston, any sort!!

[johnh875]

Mudbug - the Bond Aston was the DB5.

[SidewaysFeltham]

Synchronicity!

Just an hour ago, I bumped into and had a rather nice chat with the webmaster of the AMOC site!

Who is also, of course a long term member of AMOC.

He also rather loves the short chassis Zagatto DB4GT.

If you have upwards of a spare £500,000 and you can find one for sale.................

[johnh875]

S-F - what do you think of the Zagato style car based on the DBS? See link above

[SidewaysFeltham]

Not a lot.

As with so many of these replicas, it relies on a donor vehicle of much later vintage, for running gear and invariably, engine/transmission.

So all you really finish up with, is an exterior look-a-like.

(Same with all of the Jag C type and D type creations: they use much later XJ6 engines, suspension etc. Not the same at all).

I did quite a bit of work to a DB4 Superleggera in 1968, belonging to an ex Ford Europe colleague. Which entailed driving the car when finished for testing and final tuning.

The whole ethos of that period of Aston was a combination of the wonderfully crisp power from the classic straight six twin OHC and the almost truck-like gearbox!

The later six in the DBS was somewhat more refined.

Worth recalling two things about Astons of that era.

First, the straight six TOHC engine had originally been designed by of all people, W O Bentley, when he was working for Lagonda cars; Lagonda went into receivership and the assets were bought by David Brown and added to his Aston venture.

Second, David Brown was mainly, a manufacturer of truck transmissions: and he insisted that Aston used his gearboxes!

So the period Aston had a sort of raw surging power from a racing heritage straight six and a pretty slow gearchange!

All that said, however, the short chassis DB4 GT was the first "production" car to achieve 0 to 100 MPH and back to nought in less than 20 seconds!

Thanks to Girling disk brakes.

Pretty to look at and pretty impressive to drive them!

I drove a later DBSV8 for a fortnight, which one of my wealthy clients wanted to sell. It was only six months old, no mileage and he'd already bought a new Rolls Shadow, 'cos he found it hurt his back getting into and out of the Aston!

Nice car, but not the instant pleasing heritage of the earlier cars.

Nice site here:

http://www.donrose.com/DB4GT-LW.html

[johnh875]

Fair comments & I agree, although wasn’t the WO Bentley designed 6cyl the earlier DB2-3 unit at under 3L capacity, which was replaced by the Tadek Marek designed engine in the DB4?

In this case I gather it is a complete re-skin of the base car, and presumably a new interior to match. It doesn’t look like the wheelbase is shortened as per the original car, so presumably it would also weigh a significant amount more – the driving feel would have to be a fair amount removed from an original car. I guess it depends on how much emphasis you place on the driving rather than the ambience.

Not to mention that finding a good 6cyl DBS will become harder if they take off, but I can see that you would like one that looks like a DB4GT-Z rather than the comparatively plain and dumpy styling of the DBS. The later O-I and Vantage versions were better looking and also performing with the V8 of course.

[SidewaysFeltham]

Yes, howver the later engine owed much to W O's design.

Both the twin cam Aston and Jag engines also owed much to the early racing Delage and Sunbeams, too.

For me, both the Jags (I have owned many!) and the Astons were simply classic cars of that era.

Trying to recreate the past is OK, but all too often it's simply the case that the "Skin" as you state, is a sort of lookalike which moves significantly away from the original ethos. And, as again you state, the dimensions tend to be predicated by modern running gear from the clone.

As an example, if you drive an original XK120, in fact, both the suspension/steering and in particular brakes were awful!

The early 3.8 E Type's brakes were equally disastrous!

As were all the E type range in terms of roadholding, in practical terms.

But what a lovely car to drive! I had two: a 4.2 FHC and a series 1 1/2 4.2 drophead.

Which really demonstrates how fantastically able were the guys who raced Jags so successfully.

For me, the original breed of Astons were a sort of combination of brutish growley power, combined with a truck gearchange: but such awesome style.

A few years ago, various small car designers made ugly glass-bodied recreations of a sort of MG 30s/40s style (TA/TC/TD/TF) with a range of pretty horrible engines going from Triumph Herald to BMC rustbucket!

Buyers would have been far better served, IMHO to save up a few more pennies and find a half decent Morgan needing some TLC!

It is possible to recreate an earlier car: as did my old acquaintance, Nigel Webb, the Jag freak, when he built an absolutley slavishly accurate replica of Hawthorn's MK I saloon.

http://www.mike-hawthorn.org.uk/881vdu.php

However, Nigel always was pendantic and worked very, very hard at sourcing all the correct bits for all of his restorations, even 39 years ago, when I first knew him.

[mattt]

from the new astons that are around

the DBS
and the racing DBRS9

[garcon]

Favourite Aston? I do love some of the classic GT's, particularly the DB4... but all my real favourite cars from that era are Italian.

So I hope the classic fans will forgive my neanderthal tastes when I say by far my favourite Aston is the 1999 Vantage Le Mans. The last truly awe inspiring Aston.

Although the DB9 is unquestionably a beautiful piece of design, I really can't get to like the latest era of cars. The DB7 was an expensive but rubbish XJS, the Vanquish merely proved that Aston can make cars more brittle and less reliable than Maserati, and the latest V8 Vantage is overpriced, underpowered and frankly a bit of an insult to the Vantage name.

[SidewaysFeltham]

Remembering of course Garcon, that Carrozzeria Touring, Zaggato and Touring, Milan all had a hand in generating the Aston styling from versions of the DB2/4 and the DB4 and GT.

http://www.designmuseum.org/design/aston-martin

[garcon]

True... probably how cars like the DB4 manage to sneak under my 50s/60s radar - one that's usually full of Ferraris and Masers.

[SidewaysFeltham]

Actually interesting to look back at various cars now.

As an example, the Alvis TD21 Graber (Switzerland) designed car.

Stephen Fry using one in his new ITV series has probably driven up the price!

Nice looking set of wheels!

Look at the pics of the dropheads.

http://www.motorbase.com/profiles/ve...5;p=1753391547