The DB2/4 MkIII is the most underrated Aston Martin | Thank Frankel it's Friday

‘A what?’ is the most common response I get when I mention this car, even to people who’d categorise themselves as enthusiasts in general and Aston Martin fans in particular. Why is it that so many people see this company only from the 1960s onwards, as if it had no life before the factory moved to Newport Pagnell? I guess it’s that bloody secret agent again…

Now I of course exclude GRRC aficionados from such observations, for when it comes to such things there is probably no more knowledgeable constituency outside the owners’ club but, if you’ll indulge me for a few column inches, allow me to explain why this Aston Martin with the convoluted name is, in fact, the most underrated machine in the company’s history.

The first thing to understand was that there was nothing revolutionary about it at all. Yes it had a hatchback which might seem pretty novel in the 1950s, but so too had the original 2/4 when introduced in 1953. People still argue over whether that was the first hatchback of all. And yes it was the first Aston Martin to be offered with disc brakes, but you could have had those on your Citroen DS years earlier. Or your Triumph TR3.

The second is its name. It is not a DB3, for that was a racing car, nor is it a DBIII despite that being how Ian Fleming referred to Bond’s first Aston Martin (in the books). It is not a DB2 Mk3 or III, but it is an DB2/4 MkIII and if that’s a bit of a mouthful then DB MkIII is an acceptable contraction.

But what is it actually? Really it’s the ultimate development of the DB2 which first appeared in prototype form in 1949 and, lest we forget, which was itself derived from the prototype Atom chassis which had gone into build fully 10 years earlier than that. So by the time the DB2/4 MkIII finally bowed out in 1959, the underlying design was fully 20 years old. Apart from its engine, whose design was completed by Lagonda engineers under the watchful eye and tutelage of WO Bentley in 1947.

When new in the DB2, the twin-cam, straight-six motor developed 105PS (77kW) from 2.6-litres, which equated to 40PS per litre, a perfectly reasonable output for the early 1950s. By 1957 and now with a 2.9-litre capacity, it gave 180PS (132kW) as standard on twin exhausts, a better than 50 per cent gain in specific output. There were throatier versions too, three of them, up to an including a full race motor said to be good for 217PS (160kW), or over double the output of an original DB2. That the car could easily handle such power spoke volumes for both the essentially rightness of the design, whose unusual trailing arm front suspension had come straight from the Atom. Its chassis system was revolutionary in 1939, using a box frame structure with square section steel tubing of different gauges according to strength and rigidity requirements.

Visually, a MkIII is easy to spot thanks to its redesigned nose with a grille akin to that of a DB3S racer. It is, to these eyes at least, by a distance the best looking of the ‘Feltham’ era Astons of the 1950s, i.e everything post-war up to the introduction of the DB4 in 1959, whose production overlapped with that of the MkIII for several months. It had a new dashboard too, whose design would be carried over to the later DB models that followed and which, to me, were the best set of Aston clocks ever made.

To drive? Just brilliant. That engine (which incidentally was modified for the MkIII by none other than Tadek Marek while he perfected his own twin-cam straight-six which would first see service in the DBR2 race car and then the DB4) just sings, smooth, sonorous and wonderfully punchy through a 2,500rpm powerband from 3,000rpm. The David Brown gearbox is quite slow and methodical, but beautifully precise. Grip isn’t special on old Avon Turbospeed crossplies but that’s actually a good thing, as it is a delight on the limit. And the faster you go, the better it feels, its preferred habitat being sweeping curves, where it can swing gently from apex to apex in one long, languid, neutral drift. The only thing that betrays the fact the car ended up with far more power than was ever intended is its tendency to spin an inside wheel away from a slow corner, or quite a quick one when it’s wet. Which is why owners have been surreptitiously fitting limited-slip differentials – which were never even an option so far as I am aware – for years.

But that’s about it. If I sound more than usually knowledgeable on the subject it’s because I used to own one, which I had to sell when children came into my life, and I still don’t like to recall the transaction price. It was a scruffy car in need of more love and care than I could afford, so I sold it to an affable German banker who came to Wales where I lived, offered me what I was asking without demur. When I asked where he’d be taking it for his first drive he just looked at me with slightly puzzled expression and said, ‘Home. Germany.’ He rang the following evening to tell me the engine had blown up in a pretty comprehensive manner on the way. I was marshalling my excuses when he suddenly started laughing and said, ‘but I was on the autobahn at the time and trying to do 200km/h, so it’s probably my fault. I was going to rebuild it anyway.’

I never heard of him or that car again. But I know someone who has two, which I drive quite frequently, and every time I do, I am reminded what wonderful, sporting, English carriages they are. A DB4 or 5 is faster and more famous by far, but to drive? I’d take a DB2/4 MkIII over either in a heartbeat.

Images courtesy of Bonhams.