Aston Martin Celebration

TIM SCOTT / FLUID IMAGES AMY SHORE PHOTOGRAPHY

LEFT Prince Charles’s treasured DB6 Volante.

TOP Modifed DB5 used to develop the Aston V8 engine.

ABOVE DB4GT Zagato, a lightweight beauty.

THE CARS FROM NEWPORT PAGNELL TAKE THEIR RIGHTFUL PLACE IN THE LIMELIGHT

THIS YEAR’S CONCOURS of Elegance celebrates Aston Martin, with a special class that includes The Prince of Wales’s DB6 Volante. The display also welcomes NPP 7D, the factory prototype used to develop the V8 engine earmarked to replace the long-serving straight-six. The test mule was constructed by Aston’s engineers in 1966 using a DB6 chassis, cloaked in a modified version of the DB5’s body.

The special class also welcomes an example of the hallowed DB4GT Zagato, chassis number 1093/R, the third of the MP209 ‘ultra-lightweight’ motor sport-orientated examples. Built in 1962, it was delivered new to committed Aston Martin enthusiast and racer Jean Kerguen, and competed at Le Mans in 1962, returning a year later with a series of upgrades that allowed it to reach over 170mph on the Mulsanne Straight.

A conventionally-bodied DB4 Series 2 also joins the display. It was originally owned by eccentric British gentleman racer, Syd Greene, who competed regularly in the car across the UK and Europe. Greene lost his left arm in an accident when he was 16, so devised an idiosyncratic racing technique, changing gear with his right arm whilst gripping the rhd’s DB4’s wooden-rimmed wheel with his thighs.

A much earlier 1930 Aston Martin International also appears, a model that marks the company’s rescue by engineers Augustus Bertelli and Bill Renwick. Having taken control of the company, they incorporated their dry-sumped 1½-litre powerplant into the International. The car on show is one of the few that was bodied outside Aston Martin’s Feltham factory, instead being clothed in a drophead coupe body by James Young.

Remember your first crush

Deliciously different...

We have a 1952 Aston Martin DB2 project car delivered new in a stunning colour scheme with period competition history awaiting a new custodian...

MILLE MIGLIA ELIGIBLE | PERIOD COMPETITION HISTORY | VERY RARE OPPORTUNITY

Stand out in the fields of Silver Birch and British Racing Green with this DB2’s original period colour of Crushed Strawberry... A real sleeping beauty, this complete project car deserves to be woken up and lovingly recommissioned by us to any road or race specification that you desire. Alternatively buy her as is and do the work yourself. All sensible bids will be considered...