Bond has driven other cars, although often to public outcry. But these days the ties between car-maker and movie-maker are so tight that Aston Martin even designed and built its previous DB model — the DB10 — just for ‘Spectre.’ Such a commitment has surely been paid for many times over: just how many boys’ aspirations to ownership of a full-scale Aston Martin were tweaked by seeing one driven by a 20-foot tall man in a tuxedo? But to reduce Aston Martin’s stature within the car world to its big screen adventures — even if they have involved setting the world record for the number of ‘cannon-assisted’ barrel rolls in a crash — would be misleading. That, more fairly, comes down to a certain classic style, distinctive from that of rival companies. “One of the greatest things about Aston Martin is that, in good shape or bad, it’s always had beauty at its core, which I think is what has made it one of the greatest marques, in or out of the car industry,” argues Reichman — and he’s a man who has also had a hand in designing the Range Rover Mk III, Rolls-Royce Phantom and even London’s new generation Routemaster bus. “I’ve always felt that something beautiful is more desirable than something shocking, though not all designers would agree with that. The beautiful or classical can often be misconstrued as conventional. Shock and awe are attractive. They have their moment. But their appeal wanes quickly. How many more Iron Man cars can Lamborghini make? It’s why it’s called the Concours d’Elegance, not the Concours d’Ugly.”
Soul, Power, Beauty
By Josh Sims. Images by Aston Martin
11 Months Ago
As the creative head of Aston Martin — whose DB11, is, apparently, enough to send even small children into a tailspin — it’s been his job to steer the aesthetic of unarguably one of the most famous marques in automobile history. Of course, the DB11 gets more than the usual attention precisely for being a DB. Those initials — for David Brown, the man who bought what was, at the time, a rather troubled company more interested in racing than manufacturing cars, and steered it into the future — have a resonance for many car-lovers perhaps even beyond that of Aston Martin itself. Back in 1965, you could buy a DB5, for example, for just 9/11d. Indeed, so great was demand that Aston Martin put its name to 2.7 million of them. Unfortunately, these DB5s were made in die-cast metal by Corgi and only in 1/46th scale. On the plus-side, they came with tyre slashers, machine guns and an ejector seat. The car, of course, was the model produced to capture the hearts of small boys perhaps too young to actually see James Bond in ‘Goldfinger,’ the film that kick-started one of the most fruitful of relationships between the producers of what would, in time, become one of the biggest movie franchises in the world, and makers of a kind of car that would come to be seen as being the four-wheeled embodiment of the super-spy himself: sophisticated, thrilling and quintessentially British.
Elegance, it seems, is certainly in demand: the company entered its second century with bold plans — launched by its then-newish CEO Andy Palmer from a new production facility — to produce not just the sports models for which the marque is known, but SUVs and all-electric cars too. Clearly Aston Martin has come a long way since the Coal Scuttle, the less than flattering nickname for the very first Aston Martin — launched in March 1915, and promising “a quality car of good performance and appearance; a car for the discerning owner driver with fast touring in mind, designed, developed and built as an individual.” Two men were behind the car — Robert Bamford, an engineer, and the rather more well-to-do, Eton-educated Lionel Walker Birch Martin. He got his name on the billing, Bamford didn’t — the company instead taking ‘Aston’ from Buckinghamshire’s Aston Clinton hill climb, a race Martin had won, albeit not yet in one of his own cars. The Coal Scuttle, however, was not to go far — hit by just the first turn of events that, over the years, would see the company’s fortunes take more twists and turns than an Alpine pass. The First World War might well have nipped the fledgling business in the bud. But it regrouped after the armistice. Then, in 1920, Bamford left, disgruntled with his deal. Again the company bounced back — with Martin securing the backing of Louis Zborowski, fabulously wealthy great-grandson of William Backhouse Astor and all-round car nut, despite his father having died racing a Mercedes when his cuff-link became entangled in the throttle. In a charming coincidence, Zborowski had been designing and building his own aero-engined racing cars — he dubbed them Chitty Chitty Bang Bangs after their distinctive sound — when he met and inspired one Ian Fleming to write a children’s book…
It was Zborowski’s money that allowed the building of some serious, world record-making racing cars and, by 1923, begin proper production. At least, that is, until he too was killed in a race, one in which he was wearing his father’s cuff-links. Aston Martin went into receivership. It got back into business. Within a year, it failed again. Come 1926 it tried again, this time as Aston Martin Motors, and with what looked to be a dream team of John Benson in management and Harry Bertelli as technical director. The latter made the company a real force in competition cars, but commercial success was lacking. A controlling stake in the firm was passed around by owners who wanted faster results, until it fell to Gordon Sutherland — the man credited with seeing a future less in racing and more in the building of fast and luxurious road cars; which he did, with the breakthrough Atom model. This, unfortunately, was in 1939. You know what happened next.
Certainly, it wasn’t until after World War Two — decades after the company’s inception — that Aston Martin finally looked ready to make lasting progress. Sutherland placed an ad in The Times — offering for sale an unnamed “high class motor business, established 25 years, £30,000.” A Yorkshire engineering magnate called David Brown found out the company’s name, drove the Atom, was wowed and offered £20,500. His offer was accepted — and, with the advent of his DB series of cars, the rest, as they say, is motoring history: World Championship wins, plaudits, the custom of Q Branch…
Naturally, that would not be the end of the rocky road. In 1972, financial troubles with a tractor company meant Brown had to offload his beloved car business. The DB9 may have fired the imagination for its two initials, of course, but so much of the sophistication of what would prove one of Aston Martin’s most important recent models lay underneath and out of sight: a carbon fibre transmission tunnel, extruded aluminium bulkhead, braided carbon fibre and honeycombed aluminium A-pillar, cast aluminium windscreen surround or ultrasonically welded part — the latter two both world firsts at Aston Martin — can be a thing of allure and artistry too. But technology can also serve artistry of a more obvious, exterior kind — the kind we fall in love with. Take the DB11 as a case in point — a car heralded as a game-changer for Aston Martin. Its roof strake, for example, flows in an unbroken line from A to C pillar only thanks to a process of extruding, stretching, pressing, laser cutting, polishing and anodising — it’s a lot of work for a little thing. And then there’s the grille. “It’s my favourite part of the car,” says the always boyishly enthusiastic Reichman, a man who, like the rest of us, no doubt lost the little victim of the Corgi DB5’s ejector seat somewhere down the back of the sofa. “There’s a slight undercut that gives it a bit of a shark’s face, and I’m fascinated by sharks.
They have an amazing beauty while also being amazing predators. I wouldn’t want to swim with them but I love watching them swim — and I think an Aston Martin needs to have that same sense of potency too.” A potency with personality — perhaps, at heart, the recipe for Aston Martin’s survival; perhaps, as super-cars become less and less relevant to the road, and more like rare breeds kept for the thrill of the track, the ideal combination to face up to changing times too. Yes, the Aston Martin story may, in the end, be of more value to its customers than breaking distances. “But Aston Martin can’t just sit back and do the same old thing,” as Reichman adds. “It’s always been small and so agile. But we still have to keep thinking ahead.”