Aston DB4

[406Special]

Post moved from Bristol Ephemera

At Alpine Eagle 3 months ago when down inspecting progress on my "Alpine
Bristol Sport", there was a lovely DB4 Superleggera which had been recently
purchased as a must have by one of AE's clients. Interestingly enough it
looked to all the world absolutely perfect...except that at the asking price
of £125k, AE reckon it was at least £20k overpriced anyway, but due to a
very poor restoration (bodge job) to the front right side chassis (right
side wheel base was 1.25" shorter) and lower suspension, at least another
£20k was needed to put right to factory spec. Let's just say that when AE
jacked up the chassis the front right lower wishbone fell off the axle
upright. Car was finally purchased at £80k and about £25 spent to make it
as the owner wanted.

Moral Kevin is that a really good one (like the DB4 Superleggera) with
provenance is worth £80-90k over here I am assuming recent stock market
rumbles and Labour Govt debacles over wasted (£Bns) of tax payers "hard
earned" money hasn't dented the prices.

[Kevin H]

Clyde, all the DB4 & DB5s were designated Superleggera. The Superleggera badging was a contractual requirement by Carrozzeria Touring who's lightweight underskin structure design was licenced by Aston Martin.

It sounds like the DB4 that was a very average DB4 you saw at Alpine Eagle. That's what £80k buys nowadays when it comes to DB4's.

My car was a DB4 Series 5, original Vantage spec engine, manual gearbox and overdrive. The original spec is important - just 25 right hand drive cars were built to this spec.

It had the enclosed headlights like the DB5. In fact most people wouldn't be able to tell it apart from the DB5.

It was sold as new to the Australian MD of Johnson & Johnson in Sydney in 1962. I was the fourth owner and it had full service history and an extensive history file (including some interesting correspondence between the second owner and Aston Martin in the UK). It was completely original and in pretty much perfect condition.

I drove it very hard for four days in the 1997 Classic Adelaide rally (about 1400km) then drove it back to Melbourne. It didn't miss a beat. It won the best car in the Touring Class, which was the first time any award was made in the Touring Class at Classic Adelaide.

Today it would easily be worth £200,000.

[Sam410]

Some DB4 bodies (I don't know how many) were built by Bristol. There are photos of rows of DB4 bodies in the Filton factory.

Sam

[Kevin H]

Sam,

I can't recall seeing any reference to this, which is a bit odd. Was it
perhaps Feltham rather than Filton?

It would be rather ironic given that it would have been shortly after
that when Bristol sub contracted out their own body manufacture, to
Jones in Willesden (?) and it remained 'outsourced' until the 411.

Aston had significant union related delays in production of the DB4 in
1959 after announcing they were moving to Newport Pagnell. So I suppose
it isn't out of the question that they had bodies made elsewhere but I
would like to see the proof!

Kevin

[penman]

Hi
Bulletin 134 Page 25
Quantity given as around 75

[geo]

I tried investigating the Jones (Willesden/Park Royal?) connexion
with the bodies of the 406 and got nowhere at all. I did query this
with the late LJKS and he, at the time (must have been the early
1980s), did not have the necessary concrete evidence - anyone now
know better?

There was a lot of strange deals on pressing panels and
assembling/building bodies in the 1960s/70s. Whilst researching the
background to the financing of the former Rootes Linwood factory with
the Pressed Steel Linwood one, I came across requests that prior to
Volvo's agreement to have the P1800 panels made at the the Linwood
factories and then assembled by Jensen, it was Bristol Cars which was
their initial first choice. I could not establish whether Bristol was
only going to assemble the P1800 or was contemplating producing the
panels as well.

It is a perilous occupation interviewing the former staff of some of
these firms, for example, I was assured by one of the principals of
an extremely good vehicle painters near the old AFN factory in
Isleworth (Duralac?) that they had painted a number of Bristols
(1950s or 1960s) and that some of these had been bodied/built at AFN.
At the time I presumed that these were specials that had been fitted
with the Bristol engine, but who knows?

George

[Kevin H]

I don't get the Bulletin - no longer a BOC member.

Does it say where the photo is from originally ?

[412usa]

Bristol also made the Lotus Elite (original) body as part of there
sophisticated fiberglass work. The side panels and trunk of the 412 also
have a fiberglass sub-frame.

[Kevin H]

George, LJKS mentions this in A Private Car and given his embarrassment over his mistakes in Bristol Cars and Engines I can't imagine he would have mentioned it if is wasn't true. It wasn't conjecture in A Private Car, it was stated as fact - the 406 was made by Jones Brothers in Willesden. With the 407 body production was moved to Park Royal in Acton, where it remained until the 411, which was made at Filton.

As for the Astons. If there were bodies made at Filton in 1959, I would imagine David Brown would want to keep it pretty quiet given he would have been circumventing union action which was preventing them being made at Newport Pagnell. However, demand for the DB4 was very strong from France and the USA so it would have been very tempting, because the DB4 platform chassis was produced at the David Brown Corp works at Huddersfield. Also, although the DB4 is known as a "Newport Pagnell car", apparently "a lot" were made at Feltham.

Apparently Touring made the body tooling and the aluminium body panels were produced on a rubber press made by Dowty Bouton Paul.

One coincidence in all this is the number, 75 - that's how many DB4 GTs were made.

I would really like to see this photo if someone can scan it and send me a copy, or post it on here.

[Richard]

The Lotus Elite fibre-glass bodies were of course made under a sub-contract to the Plastics Division. I remember as a Bristol Aircraft apprentice in the early 60's spending some "irritating" weeks rubbing down and making good holes and inclusions in the bodies after they had come out of the moulds. "Health & Safety" would have something to say about that today!
The DB4 bodies referred to in the photo from the Dave Allen archive may well have been made under a sub-contract to the Aircraft Division. Certainly during my time in the early 60's going around the works there was not a lot going on. Britannia production was just coming to an end and Bristol was doing a lot of sub-contracting to keep the workforce busy. I even remember having to sort through piles of heels for stiletto shoes during my time in the press shop!

Richard

[UK6]

Richard,
One could say that the company was really down at heel!

Brett

[geo]

Yes, I am also sure that both the 406 Jones and 407 Park Royal are
true, it is just that I could not find out any information about the
Jones contract and when I asked LJKS in 1980, he was sure of these
facts, but uncertain at that time of the source. As he then repeated
this information in his later book, I assume that he had found his
sources.

It is nice to have Richard confirm the Lotus Elite information - I
unearthed some references to this with the Volvo/Rootes information I
posted before, but had not previously realized that Bristol had been
involved and a Lotus chum assured me that it was unlikely to be true.
I shall enjoy enlightening him as he does not have a high opinion of
Bristol after the 403!

George

[Kevin H]

Getting back to the photo of the DB4 bodies at Filton, does it also show Bristol bodies?

[Bellerophon]

The principal job which Bristol Plastics performed was to build plastic
hulled mine sweepers for the navy. However they did not build the car bodies for
long as Colin Chapman moved the production around the country looking for thr
best deal.
My regards,
Bellerophon

[Richard]

I believe Bristol Plastics also made wound glass filament piping for gas/liquids and aircraft fuel and drop tanks amongst other things. Bulletin 134 page 25 states that "850 or so" Lotus Elite bodies were made.

Looking again at the DB4 photo roughly 6 bodies are visible and they would seem to be located in a fenced off annex of the vast Brabazon hangar which is just visible in the background (also confirmed in Bulletin 134 which states that "75 or so" bodies were made). This would lend weight to my suggestion that they were made by Bristol Aircraft and not Bristol Cars.

Richard