DB3S

THE ASTON MARTIN DB3S STORY

Aston Martin can trace its racing heritage back to 1913 when Lionel Martin, a Singer dealer, decided to improve on his product. His modified Singers must have been an improvement (it wasn’t difficult to improve a Singer), but he decided that he could do better with a car of his own “design” and installed a 1400cc Coventry-Simplex engine in an Isotta-Fraschini and called it The Hybrid. His next car, built in 1915 and dubbed The Coal Scuttle because it looked like one, became the first Aston-Martin. Martin after Lionel, of course, and Aston after Aston Clinton, a hill climb where Lionel’s Singers had performed rather well. Martin’s cars became part of the English racing legend of the twenties and thirties. Martin left the company in 1924 when Bert Bertelli took over and the company became Aston Martin without the hyphen. Fortunes rose and fell, but much like rival Bentley, there was never a volume production car to support the racing efforts. After World War II ended, the company was in a shambles and was offered for sale in an anonymous London Times classified ad. David Brown, head of David Brown Gears, a large, international family-owned business, saw that ad and bought Aston Martin in early 1947 engine was being used in someone else’s car, but Brown for L20,000 ($80,000). It was going to be his hobby, a fun had a winner with the DB2 and Aston Martin was very much project to build what he considered the Ideal . What back in the sports car business. David Brown had done a he got was a run-down shed at Feltham and a prototype for bit of racing and loved it. Also, he was very aware of the a 2.0 litre four cylinder sports car called The Atom. Designed relationship between racing, winning, and selling. In 1948, he by Claude Hill under Aston Martin’s previous owner Gordon entered a modified Atom in the Spa 24-hour and won. The Sutherland, the car was underpowered but handled well. new DB2s proved to be excellent racers, finishing third at Le After David Brown bought Aston Martin, word must have Mans in 1950. But they were production-based road cars that got out that he was soft for ailing car companies, and he had been lightened and strengthened a bit, and they lacked was offered . Like Aston Martin, Lagonda was rich the power-to-weight ratio to achieve an overall win. in history and often in financial disarray. Founded in 1898 David Brown wanted to win, however, and started to by an American opera singer/engineer, Wilbur Gunn, the firm assemble a racing effort that would take Aston Martin to a was building a high quality car by 1909. Gunn named his World’s Sports Car Championship nearly a decade later. DB’s company after the Shawnee Indian name for Buck Creek in business sense told him that the key to racing success was his native Ohio. World War II had interrupted the company’s organization, and towards that goal he hired as reorganization under Alan P. Good, but not before Good had team manager in 1950. Wyer had worked as Solex Carbs, hired W.O. Bentley as chief designer with the intention of but had become a crack team manager at Monaco Motors. making Lagonda the “best car in the world.” They nearly did He agreed to help out Aston for one year - and stayed for 13. it, too, but in the dismal financial climate of post World War II The brilliant Wyer was one of the great team managers of all England, Lagonda was just another broken car company. time, winning four World’s Sports Car Championships during However, it was one that both Jaguar and Rootes wanted, his long career. Known for his “death-ray” dirty looks and but they too had money problems, and David Brown got sarcastic wit, he was also a kind and supportive father figure Lagonda for L55,000 ($220,000) - a lot more that he paid for who treated his team as family. John never lost a driver to a his “hobby” at Aston Martin. But Brown, a brilliant business fatal accident. He knew how to win, but not at all costs. mind (and still is today at age 85), saw an asset in Lagonda In 1950, Brown also hired Herr Professor Robert Eberan von that he knew was worth his investment. That asset was a Eberhorst, a long-time associate of Dr. Porsche. Von Eberhorst new 2.3 litre dohc inline six designed by W.O. Bentley before had made the fearsome rear-engined Auto-Union Grand Prix he had left Lagonda. The tooling for production was nearly cars work, and had worked in the four-wheel drive Cisitalia completed. Grand Prix project. He was in England to design a new ERA The four cylinder Hill-designed Atom became the DB1. (another company on the rocks) and was headquartered at (Thankfully, it never got a chance to be called The Aston Monaco Motors. Von Eberhorst was considered one of the Atom.) Hill was working on a new design for the DB2 and world’s premiere race car design theorists, and David Brown wanted to develop a six of his own based on the Atom’s four. set him to work on a competition Aston Martin. The goal was But Brown insisted that the DB2 use the Bentley engine. Hill to produce a sports racer that would be light enough to give quit and it was reported that W.O. was not happy that his W.O. 2.6 litre six a shot at first to finish. ASTON MARTIN DB3S

But it didn’t happen. The Professor’s DB3 was over-weight, behind schedule, and over-budget. Just what went wrong isn’t clear. Eberan’s design looked great on paper, featuring a large diameter tube ladder frame, with a trailing link torsion bar front suspension. The de Dion rear axle was located with parallel links and panhard rods. Rear brakes were inboard 11 inch Alfins and the fronts massive outboard 13 inch Alfins. Unfortunately, it all weighed too much for the Bentley six. Even with “LB6C” specs - 78 x 90 mm bore and stroke equalling 2580cc and “Vantage” tune featuring three Weber side draft However, the cars kept getting heavier, and the power-to- carbs and 140 horsepower at 5300 rpm - the DB3 was slow. weight ratio never quite made it into the super sports racer And rather ugly, with its slabside body and Portcullis grille. category. The Special Coupe version (NXY23) was perhaps the ugliest DB3S 1, 2, and 3 debuted at Le Mans in 1953 and all three Aston Martin ever. DNF’d, but won the five other races they started. These The DB3 was clearly a disaster, but it did win the 1952 included the Goodwood Nine Hour race - the DB3’s only Goodwood Nine Hours with Peter Collins and Pat Griffith victory the year before - and the Dunrod T.T. with Peter Collins driving (after a pit fire that badly burned John Wyer and two driving. Von Eberhorst left Aston Martin in late 1953, but not mechanics). Also, finished fifth in the 1953 Mille before he was sure that his car was a winner. Nineteen fifty- Miglia - the best finish ever by an English car in that race - four should have been a great year for the DB3S, but David after breaking a throttle cable, wiring the throttle wide open Brown made a rare wrong decision and added the Lagonda and driving 350 miles with the ignition switch. Parnell was V12 to the competition effort. The big-engined Ferraris and a true Iron Man. Perhaps all the DB3 needed was a strong 3.8 Jaguars continued to dominate, and Brown saw the DP- hand. 100 4.5 litre V12 as the answer. It wasn’t, as its bottom end What it actually needed was a tough weight reduction suffered from impossible bearing clearance problems. The program. And it got one at the hands of Willie Watson, an DB3S was forgotten in the rush to solve the V12’s unsolvable ex-ERA designer who had joined Eberan at Aston Martin. problems. The V12 car plus four DB3S’s were entered at Le Watson bypassed his boss and went directly to John Wyer Mans, including two new coupes, numbered DB3S 6 and 7 (who was now the general manager) with a plan to use and none finished. Between Le Mans and the Mille Miglia, all thinner gauge tube - 14 and 16 gauge in place of 12 and Wyer’s DB3S’s were wrecked. It was a disaster, but Brown 14 gauge in the frame - and reduce the height and length of insisted that the cars be stuck together for a minor race at the car. To his credit, Eberan agreed, and the DB3S emerged Silverstone. They finished 1-2-3 and the season ended on a 167lbs. lighter, six inches shorter on the wheel base, and strong, positive note that would carry the team into 1955. two inches narrower in the track. In tests at Monza in May DB3S numbers 1,2,3 and 4 were sold to privateers for 1955, of 1953, the DB3S was 3.2 percent faster with no increase and the factory rebuilt the coupes, Nos. 6 and 7, as open in engine power. It also was handsome and modern-looking cars. These cars, known by their street registration numbers with a more aerodynamic body developed by Aston-Lagonda 62EMU and 63EMU, because the most famous of the line. designer Frank Feeley. They were then fitted with disc brakes, a new and stronger Feeley had started at Lagonda in 1926 as a 14-year-old final drive with a ZF limited slip differential, and lighted and apprentice and had become chief body designer at age 25. more aero bodies. A new car, No. 8, was added, featuring Feeley’s designs for the Bentley-Good era (late a new iron head with larger intake valves making 200+ thirties) were among the most beautiful cars of the period. horsepower. DB3S No.5, the fibreglass-bodied car built for But he also understood function, and the new design cooled David Brown’s personal use but commandeered by Wyer for better than the original Threes and looked as exciting and team use after 1954’s disasters, was returned to the Boss. purposeful as the latest Italian efforts. And it was likely as (Brown says today that his only regret in 25 years of owning good or better aerodynamically. Feeley continued to refine Aston Martin was not keeping his race cars). the DB3s until it became one of the best looking sports The DB3S charged into the 1955 season, with Reg Parnell racers ever. and finishing first and second at Silverstone. Eberan von Eborhorst and Willie Watson also reworked Paul Frere won at Spa, and he and Peter Collins were second the rear suspension, changing the location overall (first in 3.0 litre class) at the disastrous Le Mans 24- system and replacing the Three’s heavy iron cased hypoid Hour. Salvadori won at Aintree and Crystal Palace, and Reg differential with a spiral bevel unit with a light alloy case. The Parnell was first at . inboard brakes were retained until late 1953 when they went Peter Walker and made it three years in a row outboard to cure overheating problems. The engine size was for DBAM at the Goodwood Nine Hour. Nineteen fifty-five was increased to 3.0 litres with larger intake valves and more a glorious season, and it likely could have happened in 1954, radical camshafts. Weber 35DCOs were added to get 182 too. Although the DB3S was getting old and a replacement hp at 5500rpm. Ultimately, the engine would give over 230 was being readied, the best was yet to come. hp with the 60 degree twin-plug head introduced in 1954. ASTON MARTIN DB3S

The DBRI was introduced in 1956, but it wasn’t ready, and But there is no doubt the now four-seasons-old Threes were reworked, with two where No.9 went after its new cars added, Nos. 9 and 10. (The last factory racer, No. brief appearances in the 11, was said to have been exported to America and never ran 1956 team line-up, but a as a team car.) , Tony Brooks, and look at those appearances joined Parnell and Collins to form one of the most talented first. Not a good start, with racing teams ever. bearing failure at Rouen, sidelining Peter Collins A first at Silverstone, Salvadori driving with Moss in second; after 16 laps. However, Parnell second at Spa; Moss second at Rouen; Salvadori No. 9’s start at Le Mans resulted in a strong second overall second at Silverstone; Moss and Collins second (two years behind a Jaguar D-type and a first in the three litre class, with in a row) at Le Mans; Moss first at Oulton Park with Parnell Moss and Collins sharing the DB3S’ second consecutive Le third; and closing the season Brooks took first at Goodwood Mans second place. Moss won at Oulton Park and Salvadori and Salvadori was second. finished up with a second at Goodwood. A very impressive The DBRs became the factory team cars in 1957, with DB3S exit for No. 9. No. 10 racing only at Oulton Park and at the Nurburgring Racing in Australia in 1957 was much like racing in the U.S. at 1000km. Driven by the Whitehead brothers, it finished ninth. that time. There were many good amateurs, and a few pros, The Whiteheads continued to race DB3S’s in 1958, finishing some with limited sponsorship, driving last year’s hot factory second at Le Mans in DB3S No.6 (62EMU) after the factory racers. DB3 No.9 was sold to David McKay, a top level DBR1’s failed. It was the third second place finish at Le Mans Australian driver who had found a sponsor (AMPOL) and had for the 3S - Wyer thought the team should have won in 1955 the backing of David Brown’s Australian organization. John - but next year, 1959, would at last see a DB Aston Martin Wyer was rebuilding the car to sell so McKay had his colour win at Le Mans when Salvadori and Shelby would do it in the choice, picking dark red over the original factory team British DBR1. racing green. For a racer that started as an overweight, unattractive loser, “Much later, in the early 1960’s, Carroll Shelby came to see it did one of the most dramatic turnabouts in the history of me with his idea for putting an American V8 engine into a the sport, winning 15 firsts and 13 seconds in its 35 factory- European sports car and asked me if Aston Martin would entered races. Some of the most famous names in racing build a prototype. This, if ever, was the time to resuscitate had a hand in it with Bentley and Eberan von Eborhorst the DB3S - as clean, simple concept, relatively cheap to connecting it to the past. But it was the vision and money build, with magnificent road-holding. We thus had the of David Brown, the genius of John Wyer, and the talents of possibility to build the Cobra, long before Carroll approached Frank Feeley and Willie Watson that made it into a beautiful A.C. Cars. But, by that time, we had the DB4, for which the and successful sports racing car. demand greatly exceeded the supply and I dared not add the The DB3S featured here is chassis No. 9, one of the last three complication of another model. So I reluctantly declined but factory cars built. Aston Martin also built 19 DB3S’s with I will always believe that I, and Aston Martin, missed a great 180 horsepower single-plug heads, numbered 101 through opportunity.” 120, with No.109 likely becoming the mysterious No.11. What might have been, could have been ... It’s confusing, but just think of it as 11 cars with twin plug racing engines (of some kind), 10 of which ran on the factory SPORTS CAR INTERNATIONAL, JANUARY 1990 team, and 19 customer cars with more or less production single-plug engines. Forget about the mystery car (No.11), as nobody can agree to what it was or where it went.