Tuesday 19 October 2010

Superleggera ! A Q car to leave Mr Bond eating dust - Aston Martin DB4 GT

Anybody who thinks of them selves as any kind of a car enthusiast will have to admit a visit to a VSCC meeting at Prescott is worth it just to see the mouth watering vehicles in the car park.



The vehicle above is a case in point. When I first saw it I thought it was a DB5 or DB6 those faired in lights were a bit of a give away... but boy was I ever wrong ! The clue as to the identity of this vehicle is the 'egg box grill' which predates the horizontal bars of the grill of a DB5 or DB6, making this model a DB4 of series 3 or earlier.

The red and white badge in the centre of the grill indicates that the owner is a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists.



The car bears the legendary Superleggera badge on the side of the bonnet indicating it is built using the light weight tubeframe duraluminium construction pioneered and licensed by Carrozeria Touring of Milan.



At 5 inches shorter than the 1110 regular DB4's this car is one of only 75 DB4 GT's sharing the same short wheel base chassis as the 20 original DB4 GT Zagato's (plus 4 Sanction II's and 2 Sanction III's). The DB4 GT also has thinner body panels than the standard DB4 and an upgraded 302 hp 3750 cc / 228 cui in line 6 cylinder engine distinguishable by a twin spark plug head. It was capable of 153 mph (8 miles and hour faster than Mr Bonds DB5) and 0 - 60 in just 6.1 secs, not bad for 1959 !



The final give away that this model is a DB4 GT are the clearly visible bulky racing fuel filler caps. If like me you like your performance vehicles to be slightly understated, relative to say the DB4 GT Zagato then you'll absolutely love this car.

Thanks for dropping by, don't forget to come back now !