In 1910, Robert Bamford and Lionel Martin competed in races in Britain with a Singer, but both wanted to build their own vehicle. In 1913 they premiered a car, a mixture of an Isotta Fraschini chassis and a Coventry Simplex engine, associated with a two-speed gearbox.
Show MoreThe first Aston Martin.
It was the first Aston Martin, although it was not so called, nor did it have any brother until seven years later, when the company began to manufacture small series of sports cars, without Bamford as shareholder.
The name of the brand comes from the surname of Martin, which was preceded by Aston in honor of the Aston-Clinton race, in which Bamford achieved outstanding results.
David Brown and his DB1.
Until the Second World War, the company manufactured sports cars, usually open tandem, equipped with light bodies and sold at a high price, which led to a reduced production, but high quality. In 1939, only 680 Aston Martin had seen the light.
In 1948, with the company with the water around its neck from the economic point of view, came the businessman David Brown who bought the brand. Shortly thereafter he took over Lagonda, a luxury car company that before the war had stood out for the quality of its vehicles and a glorious victory in the 24 HS Le Mans, in 1935. Brown began production of the DB1 (DB by David Brown). The car was based on the prototype Atom before the contest, which was soon replaced by the DB2, a two-seater sports coupe, whose engine was six-cylinder designed by W.OBentley by Lagonda.
The different evolutions of the DB2 turned it into a real GT, fast, manageable, very sporty and expensive, thus, the brand is fitted as a manufacturer of sports. Under a mode of craft production, which included the assembly of engines by hand and the modeling of the body by hammering from steel plates, without molds. The brand replaced DB2 by DB4 and this by future developments DB5 and DB6.
Aston Martin with its V8.
In 1972 there were changes. Brown did not manage to overcome a new crisis between the cyclicals of the firm, and sold it to Company Development at the precise moment when a newly conceived V8 engine was placed under the hood of DB5, replacing DB6. Rebaptized as V8, the new car, bigger, more elegant and more powerful, remained as a unique product in the catalog until 1988, when it was replaced by the Virage.
Meanwhile, a new consortium of companies except the mark of disappearance, and manufactured in short series a representative saloon, the Aston Martin Lagonda. Coinciding with the launch of the Virage, Ford took control of the company and forced it to share technical elements with Jaguar, also its property. From the new policy was born the DB7, with a comparative chassis with the Jaguar XK8, but with a prettier body and a higher price. With the DB7 and the Virage, transformed into V8 and declining into the usual versions Volante (convertible) and Vantage (overpowered), the range consisted, for the first time, of two different models.
Ford as owner of Aston Martin.
In 1999 a DB7 with the first V12 engine in the history of Aston Martin was introduced, and in 2001 the Vanquish was born. With a consolidated production and a demand superior to the offer, Aston Martin found under the command of Ford the economic tranquility necessary to survive as a prestigious firm, and took advantage of the opportunity to continue manufacturing some of the best cars in the world. Now it no longer belongs to Ford, but to a very prestigious English consortium, where it has given the brand an impressive boost in recent times.
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