telegraph 03 May 2013
Hundreds of classic Aston Martins will be gathered to celebrate the brand's centenary at this summer's Silverstone Classic.
Aston Martin will be celebrating its centenary in magnificent style at this summer's Silverstone Classic.
Every child had a model of one and every grown-up wanted a full-sized one: a Silver Birch Aston Martin DB5, preferably with an ejector seat and machine guns. Thanks to a 10-minute appearance on the silver screen, sales of the DB5 doubled and Aston Martin found itself building the most famous car in the world.
It is intriguing to ponder Aston Martin's potential fate but for a series of coincidences. Firstly, an Ian Fleming fan penned a note to the author in the late 1950s urging him to pension off James Bond's Bentley Continental and give the suave spy a more rakish Aston Martin such as the one he had just bought. Fleming did just that for his next novel, and in 1959's Goldfinger Bond was issued with a DB2/4 MkIII – often referred to as the DB MkIII but erroneously called a DB III in the book.
Then, five years later, when Eon Productions called Jaguar asking for a brace of its in-vogue E-types for its latest Bond film, the overstretched Coventry company declined and Broccoli and Saltzman turned to the more helpful Aston Martin, upgrading the model to the then-current DB5. The rest is history.
Yet, however much Aston Martin owes its iconic status – even its very existence – to James Bond, there must be more to it because, after 100 tumultuous years filled with myriad owners and scant profits, the company is still with us.
One reason might be that there is no other major car maker to compare with Aston. It combines the Britishness and quality of Rolls-Royce or Bentley with the hard-edged sporting ability of Jaguar, the latter far too cheap and populist to ever be a real rival.
Ferrari in the 1950s and 1960s might be considered a head-to-head competitor, and maybe it is again today, but the companies diverged in the 1970s and '80s. The Italian company's stock in trade became the mid-engined supercar, but the British manufacturer refused to follow it down such a vulgar, impractical path, preferring simply to add ever more power to its GTs.
It is all so far from its beginnings when Lionel Martin guided a Bamford & Martin Singer Special to victory at the Aston Clinton Hillclimb in Buckinghamshire in 1913. The event gave half its name to the company, production started and promptly stopped. The marque came alive in Feltham in the mid-1920s with AC 'Bert' Bertelli at the helm and a range of impressive sporting models.
After the war, Aston Martin was bought by David Brown, heralding the most famous period in the marque's history before the tractor magnate relinquished control in 1972 while the DBS was on sale.
The company changed hands plenty of times after that until Ford offered some stability by becoming sole owner in the late 1980s, eventually selling the company to a consortium led by David Richards in 2007.
Despite such a difficult middle age, Aston Martin has been reborn, just like the Bond franchise. Estimated to have built only 60,000 cars in its 100 years – Toyota churns out that many every couple of days – Aston has never been a high-volume producer and that adds to its exclusivity and mystique. Which helps to explain why an estimated 90 per cent of all the Aston Martins ever made are said to still exist. That means some phenomenal displays as marque devotees herald the company's centenary across the world this year.
The factory itself is touring Europe with three of its most important models, but one of the biggest parties will be at the Silverstone Classic from July 26-28, where Aston Martin is the Featured Celebration Marque for 2013. The venue is especially appropriate because it is central to all the places most associated with the marque: Aston Clinton, Newport Pagnell and Gaydon.
More than 250 owners have already registered to display their cars with the Aston Martin Owners' Club at the event, while the company itself is marshalling 100 significant cars from its past for a special parade on the Saturday.
Similarly revived, thanks to the DBR9, are Aston's racing fortunes. So long has on-track dominance eluded the marque that it is easy to forget that it won Le Mans and the World Sportscar Championship in 1959 and even ran its DBR4 and (briefly) DBR5 in Formula One.
To hark back to these glory days, many of the distinctively badged cars will be going rather more quickly when they take part in the Silverstone Classic's huge race programme. There will be Astons on many of the grids, but the must-see race is the Royal Automobile Club Historic Tourist Trophy for pre-1963 GT cars, in which a DB4GT and DP212 have taken the spoils in the past two years.
Dr Ulrich Bez, the CEO of Aston Martin, said: "Aston Martin is a sports car company with a great racing history. For us, not only the cars are important but also the people who engineer, build, drive, race and own them, and to celebrate together at Silverstone is the best and most befitting way to do this."
It will be a fitting tribute to one of Britain's most famous and revered institutions – and one no classic car fan will want to miss.
All tickets for the Silverstone Classic (July 26-28) – which this year must be purchased in advance – provide free access to all racing pits/paddocks as well as trackside grandstands and the live music concerts. Adult tickets are available from just £35 (plus fees), with considerable savings for car club members and festival-goers planning to spend the full action-packed weekend at Silverstone. Further details at www.silverstoneclassic.com.
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