Four Small Wheels 4/2005

GT Aston Martins at Le Mans by David Blumlein
With all of the well-justified excitement surrounding the achievements of the Aston Martin DBR9, it is appropriate to look back to that era when Aston Martins were serious contenders in the Grand Touring arena. Now, you could argue that such was the case with the first proper David Brown product, the DB2, but in the late forties and early fifties there wasn't the awareness of the GT as a separate category of sporting car and I recall the gorgeous DB2 as being sometimes referred to as a 'saloon' or more often as a coupé. So for the purpose of this article I am leaving the DB2 aside for another time. The A.C.O., organisers of the Le Mans race, judiciously introduced in 1959 a separate class within the 24-hour entry for Grand Touring cars. I suppose that we could say that this had been prompted as much by the emergence of the Ferrari 250GT cars that were already becoming a dominant force in circuit racing and especially in the then important Tour de France by the late fifties, and it was the Ferrari GT in various guises that took over the category at Le Mans at first. But the Italian marque was not to have it entirely its own way as the Shelby Cobra Daytona coupé was to demonstrate. Another contender was the Aston Martin and its story begins with the DB4, successor to the DB2 and its evolutions the DB2/4 and DB Mark III, introduced at the 1958 Motor Show. It was powered by Tadek Marek's light-alloy six-cylinder 3670 c.c. engine which had been first used in the sports racing DBR2, whose only appearance at Le Mans was in 1957. By early 1959 the factory had produced a GT version of the DB4, with a five-inch shorter wheelbase and enclosed headlamps, and the first of these, the prototype DP199/1, appeared at the May Silverstone race in the hands of Stirling Moss. This same car was entered for Le Mans by Ecurie Trois Chevrons, to be driven by Aston Martin's Swiss distributor Hubert Patthey and Jacques Calderari (any relation to current GT front runner Enzo? - Ed) .	The car was fitted for this race with a 2992 c.c. version of the 3.7 litre engine which had been used in the one-off DBR3 which Moss had driven in the 1958 Silverstone meeting. An oil tank was fitted into the GT's boot for the dry sump lubrication system. Carrying race number 21, the car retired after only 21 laps with the bearings about to go, but we had witnessed Aston's first international foray into the burgeoning GT category. Aston Martin retired officially from racing at the end of 1959, having won Le Mans at last and, having scooped at the last hurdle the Tourist Trophy, the World Sportscar Championship, the first British car to do so. However, Aston Martin was still in the market place and these successes naturally boosted demand for the DB4 and the GT; indeed private DB4GTs were raced particularly by John Ogier's Essex Racing Stable in 1960, though not at Le Mans. In the meantime an attractive development was taking shape in the form of the Zagato-bodied DB4GT and this was shown at the Earls Court show in 1960. The bodies were fitted in Italy and mostly returned to Newport Pagnall for the cars' completion. They were beautiful to behold and only 19 of these were to be made in the end. They were also the stepping stone for future Aston Martin GT participation at Le Mans. At the April test day in 1961 Jean Kerguen, a French driver from Morocco, appeared with his new white Zagato, chassis 0180/L, while an ordinary DB4GT was in the hands of Claude le Guezec, although this latter car was not destined to appear in the race. In June's race John Ogier presented his two Zagato cars, chassis 0182/R and 0183/R; the two cars became better known by their registration numbers 1 VEV and 2 VEV respectively. These light green cars were fitted with magnesium gearbox casings and were entrusted to Jack Fairman/Bernard Consten, car no.2, and the Australians Lex Davison and Bib Stilwell, car no.3. Alas they had both retired with blown head gaskets by the third hour, almost certainly the result of a failure to tighten the head studs when the engines were cold after practice.

This practice was definitely carried out on Kerguen's no.1 car which he shared with 'Franc' (Claude Dewez) and this soldiered on holding 9th when it failed to restart with a split battery in the last hour of the race!

All this GT activity was beginning to put pressure on the factory to make an official return to racing and the French distributor, Marcel Blondeau, was especially keen to see the marque back in the 24-hour race. Therefore in 1962 the works responded with a reconnaissance entry for the race in the 4-litre Experimental Prototype class, to be driven by Graham Hill and Ritchie Ginther, team-mates in the BRM Formula 1 team at the time. The Aston, labelled DP212, was basically a modified DB4GT with the very heavy platform chassis and the 3.7 litre engine linered out to 3996 c.c. Double wishbone and coil springs were used at the front while the rear was suspended on a de Dion axle with torsion bars. A beautiful magnesium-alloy body with very pretty sweeping lines covered the car, the only one of its type to be built, and to some the most beautiful of all Astons.

As this car was not ready for the test day, Zagato 2 VEV was lent back to the factory and it was fitted with the 4-litre engine destined for 212. Claude Dewez steered it round second fastest on the Saturday which boded well. Come the race and Hill led the first lap but the car was forced to retire after 79 laps with a failed piston. Also in this race were two of the Zagato-bodied cars: Mike Salmon had the Earls Court show car, chassis 0200/R, but this retired with a seized piston. Kerguen and Dewez had a second series Zagato 'MP509', a lightweight car with a lowered roof line and a more drooping nose; painted in pale blue, it too retired with engine trouble.

The big factory effort came in 1963 - three brand new cars were constructed, two production class cars, DP214/194 & DP214/195, and a prototype DP215 although they all used the same light box section girder frames which, strictly speaking, rendered the two DP214s illegal; John Wyer gambled that the French would not notice and they didn't! The 214s were given 3,750 c.c. engines giving out 317 b.h.p. whereas the 215 had a 4-litre unit yielding 323 b.h.p. This car also used the troublesome 5-speed transaxle from the DBR1 which certainly did not bode well!

The newer 215 was not ready for the 1963 April Test Day where 212 accompanied the two 214s. It did appear on time, however, for the race as no 18, where Phil Hill and Lucien Bianchi took the wheel; 214/194, car no.7, went to Bill Kimberley and Jo Schlesser and 214/195, no. 8, to Bruce McLaren and Innes Ireland. The race was certainly not the success hoped for: all the cars failed! The first to go was the 215 with ...... transmission failure at 29 laps. More disastrous was the McLaren car (214/195) which deposited all its oil down the Mulsanne Straight at 8.20pm with catastrophic consequences for others: poor Bino Heinz, the Alpine agent for Brazil, was killed as his Alpine skidded off and crashed in flames; others fortunately escaped alarming spins and crashes. The remaining 214 retired after 146 laps with piston failure - the desired forgings for the pistons had not been ready in time and castings had had to be used - their heads came off! And to rub salt into the wounds, Kerguen's Zagato lightweight, making its final Le Mans appearance, had its rear axle fail.
Michael Salmon and Peter Sutcliffe took 214/194 as a private entry to Le Mans in 1964 but, after running for nineteen hours, replenished the oil prematurely and earned disqualification!
This closed the chapter of Aston Martin GT cars at Le Mans for many years but now that David Richards' Prodrive organisation is in charge of the new DBR9 programme, we can expect changes in fortune at the forthcoming Le Mans races; a finish at least, has already been recorded which is more that any of the cars that I have talked about achieved in their time at the Sarthe circuit, despite their enormous attraction!