50 Fun Facts About Aston Martin

Which American giant bought 75% of Aston Martin in 1987 and sold the company to a consortium twenty years later?

Ford took its 75% stake in 1987 and full control by 1993, then sold Aston Martin for £475 million in March 2007 after hiring UBS to auction it.

Which model, launched in 2020 and the first car built at Aston Martin's St Athan plant, was the marque's first SUV?

The DBX was Aston Martin's first SUV and it also became Formula One's official medical car in 2021, painted green with neon yellow accents.

Aston Martin's headquarters and main factory since 2003 sit on a former RAF V-bomber base in which Warwickshire village?

Gaydon was the first purpose-built factory in Aston Martin's history, a 55-acre site next door to Jaguar Land Rover's own centre on the old airbase.

Nearly 13,000 Aston Martins were hand-built between 1955 and 2007 in which Buckinghamshire town beside the M1?

Newport Pagnell rolled out its last car on 19 July 2007, yet the old 3.6-acre site lives on as Aston Martin Works, the heritage sales and restoration arm.

Which Aston Martin racer won Le Mans outright in 1959 and sold in 2017 for a British-car record $22.5 million?

The DBR1 also won the Nürburgring 1000 km and the Tourist Trophy in 1959, three straight victories that equalled a record set by the Ferrari 250TR.

Which Texan, later famous for the Cobra, shared the winning Aston Martin at Le Mans in 1959 with Roy Salvadori?

Carroll Shelby, described at the time as an ex-chicken farmer, brought the car home a lap ahead of its team-mate in a formation finish for a 1-2.

By the company's own count, how many times did Aston Martin go bankrupt during its first century?

Seven bankruptcies in a hundred years is the figure Aston Martin itself quotes, the first coming in 1924 when Lady Charnwood bought the wreckage.

Which Canadian billionaire led the consortium that bought into Aston Martin in 2020 and became its executive chairman?

Lawrence Stroll's Yew Tree consortium paid £182 million for a 16.7% stake in January 2020, and he lifted his holding to 25% within two months.

Which marque, founded by an American-born opera singer, was bought in 1947 and still shares Aston Martin's company name?

Lagonda was named after a Shawnee settlement in founder Wilbur Gunn's home town of Springfield, Ohio, though he built his cars in Staines, Middlesex.

Aston Martin's 2021 Formula One return was a rebrand of which team, whose lineage began as Jordan Grand Prix in 1991?

Racing Point swapped its BWT pink for a modern take on British racing green, and the constructor entered as a customer of a rival's engines.

Which four-time world champion scored Aston Martin's first modern Formula One podium, second at Baku in 2021?

Sebastian Vettel finished second again in Hungary weeks later, only to be disqualified over a fuel-sample issue.

Which two-time world champion gave Aston Martin eight Formula One podiums in 2023, his first season with the team?

Fernando Alonso finished fourth in the 2023 drivers' standings with 206 points, six of his podiums coming in the first half of the year.

Which manufacturer became Aston Martin's works Formula One engine partner in 2026 after five seasons as a customer team?

Honda's F1 programme is run by its HRC motorsport arm, and the deal ended the team's customer engine supply that dated back to 2009.

Under a technology deal signed in 2013, which German performance brand supplies Aston Martin's turbocharged engines?

Mercedes-AMG got up to 5% of Aston Martin and a non-voting board seat in return, and its parent later grew that holding to nearly 10%.

Which track-only Aston Martin was limited to 24 cars, one for each hour of Le Mans, at $2.3 million apiece?

The Vulcan's 7.0-litre V12 makes 820 hp, and owners must be approved by the factory before driving it on track days, just like Ferrari's FXX cars.

Which £1.15 million Aston Martin flagship hit 220 mph in 2009 tests, powered by a 7.3-litre V12?

The One-77 was first shown at the 2008 Paris Motor Show almost entirely hidden under a 'Savile Row tailored skirt', with full specs withheld until Geneva 2009.

Which 2011 Aston Martin city car was a rebadged Toyota iQ, priced at roughly three times the donor car?

The Cygnet lasted only until 2013, but in 2018 the factory built a one-off version stuffed with a 4.7-litre, 430 bhp eight-cylinder engine for a customer.

Which gull-winged 1980 Aston Martin concept finally hit its promised 200 mph in 2023, 43 years after it was built?

The Bulldog, nicknamed K9 after the Doctor Who robot dog, reached 205.4 mph at Campbeltown Airport in Scotland after a nut-and-bolt restoration; only one of a planned 15 to 25 was built.

Which designer's wedge-shaped 1976 four-door Aston Martin saloon made Time's list of the 50 worst cars ever?

William Towns's 'folded paper' saloon was the first production car with a digital instrument panel, and its electronics cost four times the budget for the whole car.

The 1994 DB7, with more than 7,000 built the best-selling Aston Martin of its day, evolved from which Jaguar's platform?

The XJS-derived DB7 was the only Aston Martin with a steel unit body inherited from Jaguar, and it was built in Bloxham, Oxfordshire, rather than at the traditional works.

Which designer, later Jaguar's design director, styled the DB7 for TWR and co-designed its 2003 successor?

Ian Callum was new to car design when Tom Walkinshaw hired him, and he redesigned an abandoned Jaguar project with proportions inspired by the Nissan 300ZX.

Aston Martin skipped the name DB8 for the DB7's 2004 successor because the badge might wrongly suggest what?

V8 power was the worry, because the new car carried a 5.9-litre V12, and the firm also felt a one-step jump would undersell an entirely new design.

Which engineer designed the DB4's straight-six and the Aston Martin V8 that stayed in production until 2000?

Tadek Marek won the 1939 Rally Poland in a Chevrolet before joining the Polish Army in Britain, and his eight-cylinder unit first appeared in 1969.

Which 1940 prototype, among the first working concept cars, reportedly convinced a tractor magnate to buy Aston Martin?

The Atom was finished in 1940 and its chassis became the basis of every post-war Aston Martin into the late 1950s, with 27 patents filed on its technology.

The 1948 Aston Martin 2-Litre Sports, retrospectively the DB1, won which 24-hour race outright as a prototype?

The Spa 24 Hours entry was meant only as a durability test, yet the win failed to sell a 'Spa Replica' series and just 15 production cars found buyers.

Aston Martin's very first car of 1915 mated a Coventry-Simplex engine to the 1908 chassis of which Italian marque?

The Isotta Fraschini-based special was built at Henniker Mews in Kensington, but the First World War stopped production before it could begin.

Which wealthy racer, builder of the aero-engined Chitty Bang Bang cars, funded Aston Martin in the early 1920s?

Louis Zborowski raced for Aston Martin in the 1922 French Grand Prix, and his exploits inspired Fleming's children's book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Which engineer was both technical director and designer of every new Aston Martin from 1926 to 1937?

Augustus Bertelli's cars were mostly open two-seaters bodied by his brother Enrico, and the team cars were big winners in national and international competition.

Before its 1950s move to Buckinghamshire, Aston Martin built cars in a former aircraft works in which Middlesex town?

The Feltham works had belonged to Whitehead Aircraft, and the DB6 of 1965 was the first model engineered after the factory finally left it.

Which designer of many title-winning F1 cars joined Aston Martin in March 2025 as a shareholder, later team principal?

Adrian Newey signed in September 2024 after leaving his previous team that May, arriving in time to shape the car for the 2026 regulations.

In 1972 Aston Martin's owner of 25 years cleared its debts and sold the firm to a Birmingham consortium for what sum?

£101 bought a firm whose debts, said to exceed £5 million, had just been cleared, and within three years it was in receivership again.

The four-door Rapide was built from 2010 by contract manufacturer Magna Steyr in which Austrian city?

Graz lost the Rapide in 2012, six years earlier than planned, after a £1.6 million British government grant helped bring production back to Warwickshire.

Aston Martin's SUV plant, opened in 2019 in three former military 'super-hangars' at St Athan, is in which UK nation?

Wales won the 90-acre plant in 2016, and the converted Ministry of Defence hangars make it the company's second manufacturing site.

Which Chinese carmaker took 7.6% of Aston Martin in 2022 and raised it to 17% in 2023, then the third-largest holding?

Geely's 17% then sat behind only the executive chairman's Yew Tree consortium and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which joined through a 2022 rights issue; the holdings have shifted since.

Which official Formula One role did the Aston Martin Vantage fill from 2021 to 2025, debuting in Bahrain?

The Vantage safety car wore green with neon yellow accents, and in 2024 one spun and crashed heavily at Monza on a reconnaissance lap.

Which bespoke Aston Martin, only 10 built, was made for the 2015 film Spectre and introduced as 'the first cast member'?

Eight of the ten DB10s were used in filming, and in 2018 Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank left their wedding reception in one.

Which straight-six Aston Martin of 1967 to 1972 did George Lazenby's Bond drive in On Her Majesty's Secret Service?

The DBS was designed around a V8 the DB6 could not accommodate, yet it launched with the same 4.0-litre straight-six and the two ran side by side for three years; the DBS V8 arrived in 1969.

In Fleming's Goldfinger novel, Bond drives which Aston Martin, the only car in the books fitted with gadgets?

The DB Mark III is called a 'DB III' in the book, and it carries Bond to his famous golf-course encounter with Goldfinger.

Which German ex-Porsche engineer ran Aston Martin from 2000 to 2013, selling more cars in 13 years than in its first 87?

Ulrich Bez sold more than 50,000 cars, over three times the company's first 87 years combined, and raced his own products at the Nürburgring 24 Hours.

Which ex-Nissan executive, dubbed the 'Godfather of EVs', was Aston Martin's chief executive from 2014 to 2020?

Andy Palmer launched the marque's first SUV and first mid-engined car, and a few months into the job he raced a Britcar 24-hour event himself.

Which coachbuilder, bought by Aston Martin in 1955 and long linked to folding roofs, lent its name to a hot 1980s Metro?

Tickford was the trade name of Salmons & Son, and the revived brand even produced train interiors alongside its tuned Metro.

Co-founder Lionel Martin died in 1945 after being knocked off what at a set of traffic lights near his home?

His bicycle had returned as Martin's transport because of wartime petrol rationing; decades earlier he had set an Edinburgh-to-York tandem record.

Aston Martin lent its name to a 66-storey condominium tower that opened in 2024 in which American city?

The Miami tower on Biscayne Boulevard Way is part of a licensing push that also produced a submersible, Project Neptune, with Triton Submarines.

King Charles III's DB6 convertible, a Volante MkII, has been converted to run on which fuel?

E85 ethanol powers the royal DB6, a model whose cut-off Kamm tail was added after wind-tunnel tests showed the fastback DB5 shape generating lift at speed.

Which manual-gearbox V12 Aston Martin of 2023 was limited to 110 cars for the company's 110th anniversary?

The Valour's 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12 drives through a six-speed Graziano manual, and a track-focused spin-off commissioned by the firm's own F1 driver followed.

The Aston Martin Valkyrie's 6.5-litre V12, redlined at 11,100 rpm, was built by which British engine specialist?

Cosworth's V12 makes about 1,000 hp at 10,500 rpm on its own, billed as the most powerful naturally aspirated engine ever fitted to a production road car.

In Pixar's Cars 2, which British racer, named after a steam-locomotive designer, is based on the Aston Martin DBR9?

Nigel Gearsley takes his name from Sir Nigel Gresley, and the real DBR9 won its GT1 class at Le Mans in 2007 and 2008.

Which 2023 Aston Martin, unveiled at the Cannes Film Festival, was the first to wear the company's redesigned badge?

The DB12 dropped its predecessor's V12 option entirely, and Aston Martin called the 671 hp car the world's first 'super tourer'.

Which mid-engined plug-in hybrid Aston Martin sat unused in Q's wind tunnel in No Time to Die?

The Valhalla, originally codenamed AM-RB 003 and billed as the 'Son of Valkyrie', takes its name, like its bigger sibling's, from Norse mythology.

Aston Martin's first Formula One car, which failed to score a point in 1959, carried which model designation?

The DBR4 was built and tested in 1957 but its debut was delayed two years while the firm chased sports-car glory, by which time it was outdated.