1955 Aston Martin DB2/4 MkI 3 litre coupé

1960 Aston Martin DB4 GT Lightweight

RM Sotheby’s

Aston Martin DB9 at Cruisn' The Grove (2023) in Elm Grove, WI.

Aston Martin DB4 GT Bertone Jet

Volvo P1800 (with Aston Martin DP208 engine) 

With the introduction of the Volvo P1800 in January 1960 in Brussels, the story of this unique car begins. The shape of the Volvo P1800 is the work (from 1957) of Pelle Petterson then working for Pietro Frua in Italy. The first series, starting with the model year 1961, was assembled in the UK by Jensen motors in West Bromwich. The bodies were delivered by train from the Pressed Steel company works in Lynnwood. The cars were powered by the proven Volvo B18 1.8 litre carburetted engine with 90hp. It was identical with the engine from the Volvo 122 S saloon which, according to Aston Martin chief Sir David Brown, was somewhat inadequate to power a proper sports car and he decided to commence a rather bold experiment. In March 1961 he commissioned his engineers to develop a 2.5 litre 4-cylinder engine with the potential to be sold in large numbers to various companies. The internal code for the project was DP208 and the project responsible was none other than legendary John Wyre (Astons racing manager responsible for Aston Martin’s 1959 Le Mans victory). He had a budget of 3’000 pounds available (the about 36’000 Swiss francs). The engineering team around (equally famous) Tadek Marek jumped at the task and shortened a existing DB4 engine by cutting off two cylinders. The crankcase, crankshaft and camshaft had to be designed and built from scratch while the liners, pistons and valves could be taken straight from the six cylinder DB4 engine. After the first three engines had been completed, Sir David Brown made an agreement with the then UK Volvo importer Charles Singer to test one of the units in a Volvo P1800 and he commissioned John Wyer with the task.

Over the following 12 months the car was tested extensively, among others by Marek’s wife and a successful corporation with Volvo should then have materialised. In the meantime, Volvo unfortunately had decided to terminate its corporation with Jensen due to major quality problems with the coachwork construction and painting process and had transferred the complete construction of the P1800 to the Volvo main site at Lundby near Göteborg in Sweden. Perhaps the - rather complex - engine proved to be too costly for Volvo; after all the P 1800 was advertised at below $4’000 in the USA, and the targeted weight saving could also not be realised. As a result, project DP208 was cancelled probably in 1964, with the test mule scrapped and the remaining engines used for other projects.

Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato

1962 Aston Martin DB4 Series IV

My tumblr-blogs: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/germancarssince1946 & https://www.tumblr.com/blog/frenchcarssince1946 & https://www.tumblr.com/blog/englishcarssince1946 & https://www.tumblr.com/blog/italiancarssince1946 & https://www.tumblr.com/blog/japanesecarssince1947

Aston Martin DB4 Silver Birch 1958 (1 of 1499) - Vitesse - 1/43

Probably my favorite model from my small collection. Beautiful car in good performance.

When Aston Become Iconic The timeless Aston Martin DB4 All British Field Meet 2022 ______________________________________ #allbritishfieldmeet #abfm #abfm2022 #vandusengardens #british #carshow #britishcars #astonmartin #astonmartinlagonda #astonmartindb4 #db4 #superleggera #blakejphoto (at VanDusen Botanical Garden) https://www.instagram.com/p/CfIqD76u0xW/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

61 Aston Martin DB4GT

Aston Martin Vantage Roadster at Waukesha Cars & Coffee (2023) - Meet 1 in Waukesha, WI.