ASTON MARTIN 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 chassis 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 Sports Car. 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 Lagonda. 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 John Wyer 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, Reg Parnell 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.