100 BEST CARS

Mini, McLaren, Jaguar and Range Rover are easy leaders in Autocar’s list of Britain’s best-ever 100 cars. I’ve no problem endorsing the first couple of dozen but, notwithstanding Gordon Murray’s ingenious contribution, the Yamaha Motiv.e at 5 looks like lip-service to greenery-yallery. The Jaguar XJ220 also poses a question. It was neither a commercial nor technical success and needed a lot of fettling before it reached reality. Driving it was like looking at the world through a letterbox. The Aston Martins in the list are an odd bunch with no ground-breaking DB2, elegant DBS or Ian Callum DB7. Similarly it’s difficult to include a D-type Jaguar – OK on the Mulsanne straight but a bit of a handful on corners – and leave out the C-type which was more precise and exciting.
McLaren F1 (above): Collected daughter Joanna from school during my road test. She’s older now, still beautiful.
Austin-Healey Sprite. 71st. This was my second one at Turnberry. Wonderfully crisp, precise car.

Lotuses are questionable on grounds of quality and reliability but I’m surprised there is no Elan Plus2S. It was beautifully proportioned. I once did 300 miles in three hours with one. There you are the older I get the faster I was. I would not include any TVR; all I drove were just brute force and ignorance. Blower Bentleys were something of an aberration. I suppose they were glamorous but never won anything like the unsupercharged cars. Derby Bentleys are missing from the list. Surely the Silent Sports Car deserves better. Jensen-Healey – delete. Not well made, hastily modified and really quite dull. Same goes for the Daimler Dart SP250. The Edward Turner engine was ok but Daimler was so strapped for cash it had to cobble up a horrid plastic body that creaked and cracked.
One of my first drives in an E-type; Scottish Motor Show after introduction at Geneva in 1961 (below), with Jaguar apprentice Clive Martin.

No Bristols please. Except for the BMW-based 400 and the beautiful 404 they were heavy and lugubrious. I never went for the mystique so assiduously promoted by writers like the matchless Leonard Setright. Triumph Stag? I thought it was rubbish when I went on the press launch. Hillman Imp? I owned one and when it went it was OK; I drove it to Maranello where I had lunch with Enzo Ferrari, but it was not made very well. Same goes for any Avenger, even the Avenger Tiger. The press launch was on Malta where we couldn’t drive them far enough to grow suspicious of unreliability. The Morgan 3 wheeler or Plus 4 were fine, but the Plus 8 was where Morgan began to lose its way and power outstripped handling. I wouldn’t include a Delorean in any list except perhaps one on how not to develop a sports car. It was terrible. Reliant Scimitar? A definite maybe. Triumph TR5 - not bad until they put a wiggly independent back-end on making it pitch and curtsy. Triumph 1300 absolutely not. And why relegate the MGA to 95th? Shame

Range Rover. Deserves its place. Took this on the press launch by Goonhilly Down, 1970.



Love lists

Hillman Imp. On road test for The Motor with Penny Duckworth by door. Pre-launch picture so badges taped over.

100.Range Rover Evoque 99. Ginetta G40R 98. Vauxhall Astra 97. Marcos TSO 96. Honda Civic 95. MGA 94. Vauxhall Chevette HSR 93. Triumph Dolomite Sprint 92. Allard J2 91. Honda Jazz 90. Sunbeam Tiger 89. Nissan Juke 88. Invicta Black Prince 87. Noble M12 86. Lotus Carlton 85. Caterham Seven 160 84. Caparo T1 83. Rolls-Royce 10 HP 82. Triumph TR5 PI 81. Radical RXC 80. Triumph 1300 79. Daimler SP250 Dart 78. Morgan 4/4 77. Renault Megane RS 225 76. Noble M600 75. Lotus Sunbeam 74. Morgan Plus 8 73. BAC Mono 72. Gordon-Keeble 71. Austin-Healey Sprite 70. MGB GT 69. Bristol Fighter 68. Ford Cortina 1600E 67. Bowler EXR 66. AC Ace 65. Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow 64. Austin FX4 63. Napier-Railton 62. Caterham Supersport 61. Triumph 2000 60. Jaguar F-type 59. Morgan 3-wheeler 58. Reliant Scimitar 57. TVR Sagaris 56. Ford Escort RS2000 55. Bentley Continental GT 54. Ford Capri RS3100 53. Delorean DMC-12 52. Aston Martin V8 51. Ascari KZ1 50. Aston Martin V12 Vantage S 49. Subaru Impreza WRC 48. Hillman Avenger Tiger 47. Triumph Stag 46. Hillman Imp 45. Lister Storm 44. Rover P5B 43. Lotus Evora 42. Rover P6 3500S 41. Nissan Qashqai 40. Ariel Atom 39. Vauxhall Prince Henry 38. Aston Martin One-77 37. Rover 75 36. Jaguar XJ 35. Austin Seven 34. Bristol Blenheim 33. Lotus Cortina 32. Austin-Healey 3000 31. Aston Martin Vanquish 30. Lotus Seven 29. Land Rover 28. Jensen-Healey 27. Lotus Esprit 26. MG Midget 25. McLaren 12C 24. Morris Minor 23. Lotus Elan 22. TVR Speed 12 21. Rover SD1 20. TVR Chimaera 19. BMW Mini 18. Bentley Blower 17. Jaguar XF 16. Ford GT40 15. Rolls-Royce Phantom 14. Lotus Elise 13. Jaguar D-type 12. Ford Sierra RS Cosworth 11. Jensen FF 10. Ford Escort Mexico 9. TVR Griffith 8. Aston Martin DB5 7. Jaguar XJ220 6. McLaren P1 5. Yamaha MOTIV.e 4. Range Rover 3. Jaguar E-type 2. McLaren F1 1. original Mini

Works Austin-Healey 3000 rally car test. I am the fresh-faced youth.

Motor racing history.

Charterhall 1958. Researching revisions to Dove Publishing’s book on Jim Clark, I came across the race programme with his Border Reivers’ entry in the Aston Martin DBR1 (pictured below). It’s at number 14. At number 16 is the Ecurie Ecosse Cooper Monaco and at 27 Barry Filer’s Marcos GT, both to be driven by a mysterious A.N.Other. This was an unsubtle subterfuge for Jackie Stewart to conceal the early stages of his motor racing career. Apprehensive following the injuries Jackie’s brother, Jimmy, sustained at Le Mans in 1954 driving a works Aston Martin their mother forbade racing. Jimmy also inverted a D-type Jaguar at the Nürburgring but his talent was so outstanding that Lofty England wanted him to co-drive with Mike Hawthorn at Le Mans in 1955. In deference to his nervous mother Jimmy turned it down. He would probably have been every bit as good as Jackie, although in retrospect it might have been just as well not to drive at Le Mans in 1955. It was the Hawthorn-Macklin misunderstanding that set off the chain of event that led to the worst accident ever in motor racing. Pictured by me at the hairpin before the Charterhall straight, Jimmy Stewart on left, Graham Birrell also racing at Charterhall, Gordon Hunter Glasgow motor trade entrepreneur, and Jackie in a trendy hat.

Aston Martin to downgrade?

It is hardly surprising that Moody's Investors Service has things under review as Aston runs through cash reserves. Moody's analyst Falk Frey: "The review was prompted by a significant deterioration in Aston Martin's liquidity profile as per end September 2012, caused by a much weaker cash generation and operating performance in the third quarter."

Aston has been on the brink of failure before. Its founders of 1914, Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford set up in 1922, yet were forced to wind it up in 1925. It was only Aston’s racing that sustained it under AC Bertelli and then RG Sutherland, until 1948 when it was taken over by David Brown. He had just bought Lagonda, which made available a twin overhead cam 2.5litre engine designed by WO Bentley.

Once again racing was a key and the Claud Hill-designed, essentially pre-war 2litre, driven by St John Horsfall won its class in the 1946 Belgian Grand Prix. A new car with independent front suspension and open bodywork with separate wings was built quickly for Horsfall and Leslie Johnson to win the Spa 24 hours’ race. Encouraged, the new owner embarked on a programme of racing and a range of great sports and GT cars.

In 1972 the David Brown Group sold Aston Martin to Company Developments Ltd., a Birmingham-based consortium, under accountant William Willson MBE, but following another bankruptcy the receiver sold Aston in 1975 to American Peter Sprague and George Minden for £1.05 million. They returned it to a trading profit in 1977, and William Towns styled a Lagonda saloon with advanced and extremely complicated electronic systems, which turned out to be a mistake. The firm was hit by the economic slowdown of the 1980s, sales collapsing to three cars a week and chairman Alan Curtis nearly closed it. In the nick of time he attended a Stirling Moss benefit day at Brands Hatch sponsored by Pace Petroleum, and met its proprietor Victor Gauntlett.
Curtis had plans to buy MG, and a prototype Aston-MG was built, but MG Rover would not relinquish the title.

Victor Gauntlett bought a 12.5 per cent stake in Aston Martin for £500,000. Tim Hearley of CH Industrials did he same, and Pace and CHI became joint owners in 1981. Robust, patriotic Gauntlett was executive chairman and effectively head of sales. Pace Petroleum sponsored racing and the Nimrod Group C car, owned by Aston Martin Owners’ Club president Viscount Downe, came third in the Manufacturers Championship in 1982 and 1983, finishing seventh at Le Mans. Once again, however, annual sales collapsed to an all time low of 30.

Gauntlett had to sell out to the Kuwait Investment Office in September 1983. Then, as Aston Martin needed cash, he also agreed to sell his share to American importer and Greek shipping tycoon Peter Livanos, who invested via his joint venture company ALL Inc, with Nick and John Papanicalou. Gauntlett remained chairman with 55 per cent owned by ALL, with Tickford a 50/50 venture between ALL and CHI. This ended when ALL exercised options to buy a larger share. CHI's residual shares were exchanged for CHI's complete ownership of Tickford.

In 1984 Titan, the Papanicolaou’s shipping company was in trouble, so Livanos's father George bought their shares in ALL, leaving Gauntlett once again a shareholder in Aston with 25 per cent. The company was valued at £2 million the year it built its 10,000th car.

The irrepressible Gauntlett bought a stake in Zagato, resurrecting its collaboration with Aston Martin while negotiating a return to the James Bond films. Producer Cubby Broccoli had recast Bond with actor Timothy Dalton, intending to bring Bond back closer to the original of Sean Connery. The great Gauntlett narrowly turned down the role of a KGB colonel in the film.

Sales prospered until a pressing need for investment in new models. It was time for another of the chance meetings of minds that punctuated Aston Martin history. In May 1987, Gauntlett and Prince Michael of Kent were guests of Contessa Maggi, wife of the founder of the Mille Miglia, revived as a classic event. Walter Hayes, vice-President of Ford of Europe was also a guest and although still smarting over Ford’s aborted negotiations to take over Brian Angliss’s AC Cars, Hayes knew the potential in a premium brand.

Ford took a shareholding in September 1987. After producing 5,000 cars in 20 years, the economy was improving, sales of limited edition Vantage, and £86,000 Volante Zagato coupes rose, the venerable V8 ceased and the Virage was introduced. Gauntlett remained chairman for two years while Hayes took stock, contriving an engineering rationale for a new, smaller Aston Martin. Ford took full control, Gauntlett handing over the chairmanship in 1991.

Ford put Aston into the Premier Automotive Group, opened a new factory in 1994 at Banbury Road in Bloxham. There was investment in manufacturing, production quickly increased to a record 700 in 1995; the 2,000th DB7 came in 1998 and in 2002 the 6,000th. Aston Martin now made more cars in a year than it had made in all its history. The DB7 was enhanced by the V12 Vantage in 1999, and in 2001 the V12 Vanquish.

In 2003 Aston Martin moved to Gaydon and in 2004, set up a 12,500 sq m (135,000 sq ft) AMEP engine production plant within Ford Germany at Niehl, Cologne. This could produce 5000 engines a year but under pressure from America, Ford divested itself of the Premier Automotive Group, selling first Aston Martin, then Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo. UBS AG was appointed in August 2006 to sell Aston Martin by auction and on 12 March 2007 a consortium led by Prodrive chairman David Richards and co-owned by Investment Dar and businessman John Sinders, purchased it for £475m ($848m). Prodrive had no financial involvement and Ford kept a stake, valued at £40 million ($70 million).

Now there have been bids from Investindustrial and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. Investindustrial, a European private-equity fund based in London, offered just under £250 million, Indian Mahindra then making a higher bid. The winner would get 50 percent of voting rights and a 40 percent equity stake. Investindustrial plans to use technology and car parts from AMG Mercedes-Benz. Aston Martin still gets engines from Ford but lost access to other resources after Ford sold it.

Aston Martin power point

Aston I tested in 2007, photographed Isle of Bute
There seems no point in bigger engines in bigger cars, which do 200mph, or would if there was anyplace to do it and anybody brave enough to try. I’ve managed 185 (electrically timed) on a test track and I can not think of a road where I would care to. Neil Lyndon, articulate as ever in The Sunday Telegraph, admits to being enamoured with Aston Martin for 50 years, but says it, “…must be rather like being a fan of Manchester City. Occasional eruptions of fervently inventive world-beating creativity interspersed with ages of miserable underachievement.”

Prompted by the Duke of Cambridge’s appearance in the Prince of Wales’s DB6, Lyndon ruminates on a make Ford acquired in 1994. “It seemed (Aston’s) ship had finally come in. At last it was in the care of indulgent patrons who wanted exactly what all Aston lovers longed for. Ford built a factory at Gaydon the equal of Ferrari’s at Modena They seconded top designers, wrote them a blank cheque and said they were to achieve nothing less than their best work.”

Beautiful proportions, the DB7, even though cobbled from Jaguar parts.
Ford backed away, leaving Aston looking for new backers but, “Cars in the last four years have, at bottom, been variants on existing models. The Virage Coupé is a kind of genetic extrusion from the DB9, which appeared in 2004 and was a rethink of the DB7 of 1994.” It’s all too true. Like Lamborghinis, Astons have become bigger, more powerful, more complicated, faster, and more expensive. At £160,000 they begin to look faintly absurd. Owners no longer appear macho or even sportif so much as profligate. It’s even worse with Bugattis.

The traditional Aston radiator shape has been preserved - just.Aston’s 6 litres and 500 horse power is fine for a toy you use on a track day, or even real racing, yet it is excessive for a road car.

They should get back to high-efficiency smaller cars, exquisitely engineered. There were great 2 litre Aston Martins.

There was a memorable 1750cc Alfa Romeo of the 1930s, of watch-making precision that made fierce mechanical noise. Ferrari’s first masterpiece was a 2 litre V12. The DB 2 Aston was a modest 6-cylinder of 2½ litres designed by WO Bentley. The DB4 of 1958 was 3.7 litres. Jim Clark’s DB4GT Zagato, of cherished memory, had 314 horse power. In 1969 the DBSV8 was 5.3 litres.

Aston Martin DB2/4, engine design by WO Bentley
There is a hint of desperation among supercar manufacturers, announcing ever more extravagant cars at ever more ridiculous prices. Jaguar has said it will sell 250 CX-75s in 2012 at £700,000. Its engineers’ flights of fancy were once D-types, which won Le Mans. Now, it seems, they are just flights of fancy.

Borrowed plumes. The late Victor Gauntlett, who owned the company, lent me his personal DB2/4 for the RAC Golden Fifty Rally.

Aston Martin DB VII

An Aston Martin DB7 was just about right for a road car. Quick enough for most purposes, classic name and reputation, well made and exquisitely beautiful it remains an aspiration. It also has the virtue of not making its driver look absurd. Unless you are going to race, there doesn’t seem much point in a 600 horse power two hundred and something miles an hour monster. A DB7 is manageable, isn’t a lot faster than the 1960s icon the E-type Jaguar and doesn’t invite ridicule. Its real pedigree may not stand too close scrutiny. As the attached feature from The Times testifies, it was pretty much Jaguar XJ-S underneath but that rode well, handled not badly and by 1993 was well sorted. Ray Hutton, with whom I drove on the press launch, was a bit dismissive but I liked it from the start. Went to Chatsworth last year when there was an Aston Martin Owners’ Club event and thought how well DB7 looked still, even against later bloated Astons. You need a sense of proportion about cars. Goes back to when an E-type was perfectly appropriate for the road and a D-type was great to race but couldn’t be taken seriously for going to the shops.


Click to enlarge or read original copy attached.


Two Litres was once fine for a high quality sports car

The Times: Tuesday 19 October, 1993: ASTON MARTIN

There is an air of confidence at Aston Martin, which the company has scarcely known since the 1950s. When production of the DB7 starts in April, it will mark an astonishing come-back, after nearly two decades in which the rest of the motor industry virtually wrote it off.

Most of the 300 DB7s planned for the first year's production are already sold after the car's spectacular debut at the Geneva motor show this spring. Now, Aston Martin is expanding its sales network, confident that the North American market will enable it to double production to 600 a year.

It hardly matters that the car is essentially a design shelved by Jaguar; it has brought Aston Martin back into the automotive mainstream. It looks every inch a thoroughbred, and after development by a team which includes former world champion Jackie Stewart and formula 1 team taskmaster Tom Walkinshaw, it has brought Aston Martin back into the mainstream.

Stewart started his racing career thirty years ago in an Aston Martin DB4GT, but when Ford took over the company in September 1987, production Astons still bore it an uncomfortable resemblance. Ford invited Walter Hayes, one-time confidant of Henry Ford and a motor industry veteran, to bring Aston Martin up to date.

A first-class opportunist, Hayes identified a role for Aston Martin within the Ford empire, as well as one for himself running it after he stopped being a Ford vice-president.

He needed fresh minds, and hand-picked a new team. He also knew he could never create a new car in the old cramped works at Newport Pagnell. A key appointment to the board was Tom Walkinshaw, who had set up JaguarSport to make Jaguar XJ220s in a roomy, modern purpose-built plant with room for expansion at Bloxham near Oxford. XJ220 was planned with a limited life, Jaguar with a half-share in Bloxham was now owned by Ford, so the pieces of the jigsaw began to fit together. Aston Martin (Oxford) was formed, with Jackie Stewart on the board to ensure the DB7's sporting pedigree.

A consultant to Ford since his racing days, Stewart protested at first. 'I don't work for Aston Martin.'

Hayes's reply was succinct. 'You do now.'

The Times subbed this bit out and inserted 'Mr' before names.

Aston Martin's history was punctuated by financial crises and changes of ownership. Until Ford took over, its only consistent feature was the production of fine sports cars. Astons were always at a premium, highly priced, highly prized, and exquisitely made.

Lionel Martin made the first one in 1914 with Robert Bamford, and coined the name from a hill-climb course at Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire. It had an undistinguished 1.4 litre side valve Coventry-Simplex engine, in a chassis copied from an Italian contemporary.

Production of a 1.5 litre car, plainly engineered but selling for a formidable £850 got under way in 1922, and by the mid 1920s the firm was making 20 cars a year. In 1924 a racing programme led to adventurous overhead cam engines and lightweight chassis. There was an optimistic showing of Aston Martins at the Olympia Motor Show in 1925, but within weeks the company was in trouble.

Aston Martin was unable to pay its way. It was wound up and had to be rescued by A C Bertelli, who restarted production at Feltham in 1927, and made racing versions in 1928/29. Success on the track, alas was not matched by sales. Following another financial crisis in the early 1930s, the Bertelli regime collapsed, and R G Sutherland took control.

He inaugurated sports cars such as the 80hp Ulster of 1935, and the 100mph Speed Model, as notable for their striking appearance as their stirring performance. Sutherland's Aston Martins were archetypal sports cars with cycle-type wings, pointed tails, and spartan open two-seater bodywork.

In 1947 Aston Martin, integrated with Lagonda, became part of the engineering empire of David Brown, the tractor manufacturer, once again leading to outstanding cars. W O Bentley supervised the design of a 2.5 litre overhead cam engine for a sporty coupe which came out in 1950, together with a luxury Lagonda.

After the new 2.0 litre sports, the proprietor applied his initials to the next, and DB for David Brown entered the motoring lexicon as a match for anything produced by Ferrari, Maserati, or Alfa Romeo. A vigorous racing programme brought Aston Martin the world sports car championship in 1959, and first and second in the 24 Hours race at Le Mans.

But in the 1970s the luxury car world was thrown into turmoil by successive oil crises, sales failed to cover the substantial cost of making quality cars largely by hand, and Aston had once again to be saved. This time the staunchly patriotic Victor Gauntlett re-established it, making Aston fit enough to attract the major shareholding by Ford.

At the headquarters of Benetton, his formula 1 racing team, Walkinshaw whose 40 companies have an annual turnover of £100 million and 750 employees worldwide told me, 'I was approached by Victor Gauntlett and Walter Hayes two years ago. Aston Martin had no new product programme and its future looked doubtful.' Together with Hayes and his team of engineers a new strategy was worked out, and a smaller Aston Martin (the current ones had grown to 5.3 litres) planned at an affordable price. The way forward was to see what common components could be obtained from within Ford, which included Jaguar.

The design for the DB7 was code-named NPX (Newport Pagnell eXperimental), with a Jaguar XJS floor pan and engine block. The aim was to develop a car in the £80,000 range. It emerged as the DB7, a classic 3.2 litre front-engined, rear-drive coupe still bearing the initials of Sir David Brown, honorary life president of Aston Martin Lagonda until his death last month September at the age of 89.

The old works at Newport Pagnell was left to carry on making new versions of the existing cars. It has been modernised, but by and large the cars are hand-finished much in the way they always were. The latest 5.4 litre Vantage has two superchargers and a top speed approaching 190mph.

Jackie Stewart has not forgotten the kind of car he raced in the early 1960s.

'Aston Martin customers will be fastidious', he says. 'The DB7 must have the grip and handling of a thoroughbred, it must feel like an Aston Martin.' It is in good hands.
Wood facia nothing new for an Aston Martin.