Background
The evolution of the Aston Martin V8 straddled one of many turbulent periods for the iconic British sportscar manufacturer. That was saying something, too! To date Aston Martin has survived seven bankruptcies in its illustrious history. The V8 went on to be the Newport Pagnell company’s mainstream model for nearly 20 years. As such it was around for the good times, and the bad before its replacement by the Virage in 1989.
David Brown, who held the company’s reins at the time, wanted to take Aston Martin to another level and to do that he wanted and needed a powerful V8 engine to replace the venerable straight six. Polish engineer and Aston employee since 1952, Tadeusz “Tadek” Marek, was charged with creating this new eight-pot. Designer William Towns penned a muscular and distinctive GT car which was created to specifically house the new engine. The car was ready by 1967 but Marek’s V8 engine wasn’t. Consequently, the new design was launched with the 4L, straight-six engine carried over from the outgoing DB6.
These cars were named the DBS.
The new car was heavier and bigger than the DB6 so the reception for the 6-cylinder DBS was a little muted. By 1969 the new V8 was finally ready, however, and so the DBS V8 became Aston’s flagship model for the next four years. In this application Marek’s 5,340cc engine was fitted with Bosch fuel injection. The DBS V8 featured a quad headlamp setup and was the last car of the David Brown era with the long-time owner selling the business in 1972. Brown paid off all the company’s debts at that stage, thought to amount to around £5M, and sold the company for £101 to Company Developments, a Birmingham-based investment bank consortium.
With Brown’s departure the DB nomenclature was no longer deemed appropriate and so the car became the AM V8. The look changed, too, with the AM V8 now sporting twin 7-inch, quartz iodine headlamps. In true Aston Martin style, the stores had 17 sets of DBS V8 badges still in stock and so the first 17 AM V8s were thus badged. The Bosch fuel injection was dropped during 1973 in favour of four, twin choke, and downdraft Weber carburettors. This became known as the Series 3 car with a couple of obvious external traits differentiating it. The bonnet bulge became deeper to cover the quad Webers. At the rear, the louvres below the rear window of the Series 2 were now gone.
At last Aston Martin had a true supercar on its hands. With a 150mph top speed and a sub six-second 0-60mph, Newport Pagnell was finally ready to take on the world. The V8 would continue in production right through until 1989. A total of 967 Series 3 cars were produced between 1973 and 1978.
