David Brown: The Tractor Salesman Who Saved James Bond
Some men buy a sports car as a hobby. David Brown bought the entire car company. And then, because he felt it needed a better engine, he bought another car company just to get his hands on theirs. This was the way of Sir David Brown, a fantastically wealthy, no-nonsense Yorkshireman who had made a colossal fortune in the deeply unglamorous businesses of tractors and gearboxes. He was a proper, old-school industrialist, not a flashy playboy. And yet, through a magnificent, 25-year-long act of pure passion, this sensible tractor salesman was the man who single-handedly created the glamorous, world-famous, James Bond-driving Aston Martin we know today.
David Brown was not born into the car world. He inherited and built up a vast family business, David Brown Limited, a powerhouse of British heavy engineering. By the end of the Second World War, he was rich, successful, and a little bit bored. In 1946, he saw a classified advertisement in The Times newspaper: "High Class Motor Business for sale." The price was £30,000. He went to have a look, drove one of their prototypes, and after a bit of haggling, bought the entire company for £20,500. The company was called Aston Martin.
A Shopping Spree for Engines
Brown now owned a respected, but tiny and cash-strapped, sports car maker. He knew the company's own pre-war engine designs were not up to the job. He needed a modern, high-performance engine. A few months later, he saw another advertisement, this time for a company called Lagonda, which was also bankrupt. Lagonda had a magnificent new 2.6-litre, twin-cam, six-cylinder engine, designed by the legendary W.O. Bentley. Brown didn't really want the rest of the company, but he desperately wanted that engine. So, he bought Lagonda as well.
It was one of the most brilliant and extravagant shopping sprees in motoring history. For a total bill of just over £70,000, David Brown had acquired two of Britain's most historic marques. His plan was simple: he would take W.O. Bentley's brilliant Lagonda engine and put it into a new generation of Aston Martins. And to make it clear who was now in charge, he decided to put his own initials on the front. The "DB" era was about to begin.
The Birth of the DB Legend
The first car of this new era, the 1950 Aston Martin DB2, was a sensation. It was a beautiful, fast, and high-quality grand tourer that immediately put Aston Martin on the world stage. It was followed by a succession of ever more beautiful and powerful cars: the DB2/4, the DB Mark III, and then the magnificent, Italian-styled DB4 of 1958. These were cars that could compete with the very best from Ferrari and Maserati. They were hugely expensive, hand-built machines for a discerning clientele of wealthy enthusiasts.
But Brown wasn't just interested in building road cars; he wanted to win. He poured money into the Aston Martin racing team, with the single-minded goal of winning the most important race in the world: the Le Mans 24 Hours. After years of trying, his dream was finally realised in 1959, when the beautiful Aston Martin DBR1, driven by Carroll Shelby and Roy Salvadori, took an emotional and hugely popular victory. David Brown had taken his small, bankrupt company and made it a world champion.
The Bond Effect
By the early 1960s, the DB series had evolved into the DB4 GT Zagato, a car of almost painful beauty, and then, in 1963, the DB5. The DB5 was the ultimate gentleman's express, a car that perfectly blended Italian style with British engineering. And it was this car that was chosen by the producers of a new spy film, Goldfinger, to be the transport for James Bond. The effect was immediate and seismic. The Silver Birch DB5, with its gadgets and ejector seat, became the most famous car in the world.
The "Bond effect" transformed Aston Martin from a niche sports car maker into a global symbol of cool. David Brown had, almost by accident, created a brand with a level of glamour that money simply couldn't buy. But behind the glamorous image, the company was struggling.
The End of an Era
The problem was that the cars were simply too good. They were so expensive to hand-build that the company barely made any money on each one it sold. David Brown was funding his glamorous car company with the profits from his less glamorous, but much more successful, tractor business. For 25 years, he poured his heart and his fortune into Aston Martin, but by the early 1970s, with his industrial empire facing its own financial headwinds, he could no longer afford his expensive hobby.
In 1972, with the company once again on the brink of bankruptcy, a reluctant Sir David Brown sold his beloved Aston Martin for the nominal sum of £101. It was a sad end to one of the greatest chapters in British motoring history. He had rescued the company from obscurity, given it his name, and turned it into a world-famous icon.
The story of Sir David Brown's time at Aston Martin is a testament to the power of one man's passion. He was not an accountant; he was an enthusiast. He ran the company not to make a profit, but to create the best and most beautiful cars in the world. And for 25 glorious years, that is exactly what he did.