Manufacturers  /  Aston Martin

Aston Martin

Gaydon, England · est. 1913

The grand tourer is the base; racing and coachwork set the hierarchy.

Models
16
Top value
€20M
Period
1913–
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Aston Martin — manufacturer stage

Curated entry points

The essential Aston Martins

Three cars that explain the manufacturer: its origins, its engineering peak and the shape of its modern ambition.

1956–1959

DBR1

Le Mans winner; five built, a championship sports-racer.

Collectibility
99 / 100
Indicative value
€20M
1960–1963

DB4 GT Zagato

Lightweight Zagato-bodied GT; nineteen originals, fiercely prized.

Collectibility
98 / 100
Indicative value
€9.5M
2021–

Valkyrie

Red Bull-engineered, F1-grade Cosworth V12 road hypercar.

Collectibility
96 / 100
Indicative value
€3.2M

Complete catalogue

Every Aston Martin on file

16 models · 3 families

Vintage · DB & Zagato

6

The cars that built the legend — hand-formed aluminium from Newport Pagnell and Milan, the Bond DB5 among them. The blue-chip core of any serious collection.

Hypercars

5

Aston at full intensity — from the One-77 to the Red Bull-engineered Valkyrie. Naturally aspirated V12s and Formula 1 aerodynamics, in the smallest of numbers.

Limited & Continuation

5

Newport Pagnell craft applied to tiny runs — Zagato collaborations, sanction-built continuation classics and bespoke commissions like the unrepeatable Victor.

The house

The grand tourer is the base; racing and coachwork set the hierarchy.

Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford founded the company in 1913, the name borrowed from the Aston Clinton hillclimb where Martin raced. A century of near-bankruptcies followed, and the cars that survived it became some of the most coveted gran turismos ever built.

The DB era under David Brown set the template — the DB4 GT Zagato married Newport Pagnell craft to Milanese aluminium, and the DB5 became cinema itself the moment Sean Connery slid behind the wheel as James Bond. Carrozzeria Zagato has returned to clothe Astons ever since.

On the track the DBR1 won Le Mans and the 1959 World Sportscar Championship. Today the Valkyrie, born of a Red Bull Racing partnership, drags that competition heritage into the hypercar age alongside continuation DB4s and bespoke one-offs.

Founded
1913
Robert Bamford and Lionel Martin established their London business on 15 January.
DB4 GT Zagato output
19 originals
Twenty-five were planned; nineteen were built from 1960 to 1963, before the later Sanction and Continuation cars.
Defining structure
Bonded aluminium
DB9 introduced the modular VH architecture for production in 2004; DB11 began its successor.
2017 auction result
$22.55 million
DBR1/1 set auction records at the time for Aston Martin and for a British automobile.

Selected milestones

A bloodline, not a list.

  1. 1913

    Bamford & Martin

    Robert Bamford and Lionel Martin establish the London business that develops the first Aston Martin.

  2. 1947

    David Brown and Lagonda

    David Brown buys Aston Martin in February and Lagonda in September, securing the six-cylinder engine that powers DB2 and begins the DB line.

  3. 1959

    The works programme delivers

    DBR1 takes first and second at Le Mans as Aston Martin also secures the World Sports Car Championship.

  4. 1960

    The Zagato branch

    A shorter, lighter DB4 GT receives Zagato coachwork; only nineteen originals are completed.

  5. 2003

    Gaydon and DB9

    Aston Martin moves to its first purpose-built factory and unveils DB9, whose aluminium engineering becomes the basis for the next road-car generation.

  6. 2021

    Valkyrie enters production

    The first customer Valkyrie is completed at Gaydon; its hybrid-assisted V12 and aerodynamics-led engineering establish a new technical branch.

What defines Aston Martin

Grand touring as the base

Front-engined, two-door GTs form the continuous road-car line from DB2 through DB12.

Competition feeds the road cars

Works racing programmes inform engines, structures and the higher-performance branches of the catalogue.

Coachwork creates distinction

Shorter chassis, lighter panels and Zagato bodies are developed as substantive variants rather than trim packages.

The hands

Who drew and built the Aston Martin files

One name in the register stands behind this manufacturer. Their own file follows the work wherever it went.

The whole register of people

The mark

Wings, drawn by a racing man.

The first badge, 1921: an A laid over an M in a plain ring — the button. Wings arrived in 1927, and nobody recorded whose hand drew them. The version that stuck came in 1932 from S. C. H. “Sammy” Davis, sports editor of The Autocar and a Le Mans winner: his interest in Egyptology gave the feathers the scarab’s geometry, a structure that took enamel well. It flew first on the LM1 racer he drove himself.

Ninety years later the change was subtraction: Peter Saville’s 2022 refresh — only the eighth in the company’s history — removed a single line and let the type breathe. The physical badge is still made by hand, at Vaughtons in Birmingham’s jewellery quarter.

S. C. H. “Sammy” Davis, 1932 · refreshed with Peter Saville, 2022

Aston Martin crest, 1921–1926

1921–1926

The button: A over M in a ring, before the wings.

Aston Martin crest, 1927–1930

1927–1930

The first wings — the hand that drew them was never recorded.

Aston Martin crest, 1932–1939

1932–1939

Davis’s redraw: scarab geometry, built to take enamel.

Aston Martin crest, 1950–1971

1950–1971

David Brown buys the company and puts his name over the wings.

Aston Martin crest, 2003–2022

2003–2022

The 2003 cut — the wings the modern era wore.

Aston Martin crest, 2022–

2022–

Saville’s refresh: one line removed, hand-made in Birmingham.