Aston Martin’s DB2

“Look at this!” Tracy shouted across the house. My wife’s swim coach voice was too enthusiastic to tarry, so I sprinted to the dining table to see her holding a battered, pulp classified tabloid. She held it up with an index finger firmly on a single ad at the top of a column. “Aston Martin DB2 Vantage, good condition, $15,000. Connecticut,” and a phone number. We called from the table. A week after the call I borrowed a trailer and headed for Connecticut.

I had loved the DB2 Aston Martin for years. It seemed to be an affordable 6C 2500 Alfa Romeo with SU carbs. It had a beautifully engineered spaceframe, an inline-6, with DOHC that produced 125 hp in its Vantage form and came in 3rd overall at Le Mans in 1951. It looked like a Touring-bodied Alfa because David Brown had sent Frank Feeley to Carrozzeria Touring for inspiration and information about Carlo Felice Anderloni’s Superleggera lightweight body construction—small steel tubes and aluminum body panels. The DB2 weighed only 2500-pounds. Pure essence of Lionel Martin’s original dream; to create “A car that works like a Bugatti and is finished like a Rolls.”