Background
The Aston Martins that followed on from the DB6 were very obviously from the pen of a different designer.
They took their aesthetic cues from the design zeitgeist of the 60s and 70s, not the 40s and 50s. They also tipped an unapologetic and undisguised nod to America’s muscle cars – the Ford Mustang in particular.
After the DB6 came the DBS, still with a 6-cylinder engine and patiently awaiting the arrival of a V8 that promised to give the car the grunt to go with the grace.
Although the esteemed design house Carrozzeria Touring of Milan had been commissioned to pen the new Aston, the two prototypes it made were deemed to be disappointing, old-fashioned and lacking the impact demanded of a Newport Pagnell product.
Instead, a competing design from Aston’s own William Towns was chosen. Shortly after this, Touring went into administration.
Initially launched in 1967 with a 4.0 litre straight-6 engine, the muscular fastback grand tourer developed 280 bhp. A factory option Vantage engine, fitted with special camshafts and triple Weber carburettors, increased this power output to 325 bhp.
It was another two years before the Tadek Marek 5.3 litre V8 was ready and, although power was slightly down on the Vantage-spec 6, the DBSV8 was for a time the fastest four-seater production car in the world.
No stranger to either the silver or small screen, the DBS gained fame transporting George Lazenby’s 007 in ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ and later cemented its celebrity as the car of Roger Moore’s aristocratic Lord Brett Sinclair in ‘The Persuaders’.
Both 6-cylinder and V8 powered models were produced until 1972 when, no longer under David Brown’s control and so dropping the DB reference, the company went forward with a single restyled variant marketed as the Aston Martin V8.
