The Aston Martin

The Aston Martin car is one of the most typically British of motor vehicles. It is made by the Aston Martin Private Limited Company which makes its headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire in the United Kingdom.

The posh car gets it’s name from one the company founders Lionel Martin and from a nearby hill climb called Aston Clinton Hill liming in Buckinghamshire. The company was founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford and both used to sell cars made by Singer, GWK and Clthorpe.

The first Aston Martin was a hybrid machine designed by Martin that combined a four cylinder Coventry-Simplex engine inside the engine of a 1908 Isotta-Fraschina.  Even though the company was supposed to start manufacturing the cars at this point, their production was interrupted by the start of World War I. All of the Aston Martin production equipment was sold to the British Army for the war effort.

In 1922 the company was revitalized with funding from Count Louis Zborowski. They produced cars that competed in the Grand Prix. These cars had 16-valve twin cam engines that broke records in races.  However the company went broke again and then was rescued by a number of rich British investors in the aircraft industry. The headquarters of the company was moved to Feltham.  The company once again produced a number of svelte racing cars including “Le Mans”, the MKII and the Ulster.

During World War II the company switched to producing airplane parts again and was rescued from bankruptcy in 1947 by David Brown Limited.   The company then produced a classic string of cars that all included the initials DB or Mark III in their pedigree. These are the touring models that are very typical of British car design from 1954 to 1964. Most models had a short back, a long front hood and deep set seats. They came in colors like cherry red and deep forest green.

The company was sold several times throughout the next few years to save it from bankruptcy. It was even owned by America’s Ford motorcars at one point.  Cars of note manufactured at this time were the BullDog, the Volante and the V8 Vantage.

Currently the company is owned by Prodrive and the cars are manufactured in Austria. The last English plant  manufacturing these cars was in Newport Pagnell. The plant was closed in August 2007. In 2012 the company announced it was making the first four-door Aston Martin sportscar after a century of only making two door models.