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 six-cylinder engine and patiently awaiting the arrival of a V8 that promised to give the car the grunt to go with the grace.
The DBS proved to be well worth waiting for. It was a proper muscle car and one that owed its squat, steroidal stance and sleekly aggressive profile to the design pen of Aston’s William Towns.
The engine was designed by Polish émigré Tadek Marek, a man whose inimitable engineering imprint stretches from the DBR2 racing car engine, through the redesign of Aston’s venerable, Bentley-derived straight-six, to the development of the 5.3-litre V8 for the DBSV8 in 1969.
The Aston Martin DBSV8 was manufactured between April 1970 and May 1972. It featured Bosch fuel injection and was capable of accelerating the 1727kg gentleman’s express from 0 - 60mph in 5.9 seconds.
The Aston Martin V8 Series 2 was the first of the line to be known simply as the V8 (its predecessor, the DBSV8, was effectively the Aston Martin V8 Series 1, although it never bore that moniker).
Every car took around 1,200 man-hours to build and each was every bit as handmade as a Savile Row suit.
These Aston Martin muscle cars may have had more than enough testosterone to compete with the Mustangs, Chargers and Corvettes of their trans-Atlantic cousins, but they did so with all the unmistakably British pedigree and class of a St. James’ club.
