10 wildest Aston Martins ever

Not all of the marque’s products were suitable for stylish secret agents

Nowadays, Aston Martin makes much of its status as a chic, stylish brand – with an ethos of ‘power, beauty and soul’. After all, it’s every spy’s marque of choice.

Not every machine to have carried the famous badge has entirely lived up to those qualities, though. In fact, some were pretty much the opposite.

From coachbuilt models clothed in wacky bodies to in-house examples that were decidedly offbeat, history has seen its fair share of eccentric Astons – starting with these 10 here.

1. Arnolt Spider

Stanley Harold ‘Wacky’ Arnolt was an entrepreneur with an eye for automobiles. He snapped up the distribution rights for a host of marques in the Chicago area after WW2, becoming a millionaire as a result.

Come the 1952 Turin Motor Show, he spied a pair of concepts mocked up by Italian design house Bertone, and he was hooked. Just two years later, the remarkable Arnolt Spider arrived, clothed in Bertone coachwork.

Arnolt Spider (cont.)

Built on Aston’s DB2/4 chassis using the standard suspension and 2.9-litre six-cylinder engine, it was the remarkable bodywork – penned by Franco Scaglione – that really caused a stir.

Lightweight and designed for competition, the elegant, figure-hugging lines rivalled those of Aston’s own racers – which might be why the marque refused to sell Arnolt any further chassis. Just three were ever built.

2. DBS Estate

A number of Aston Martin cars have been made into shooting brakes over the years, but Harold Radford’s conversions of the DB5 and DB6 were arguably the most elegant – and certainly more so than Aston’s own Virage.

London-based coachbuilder FLM panelcraft built three DB6 estates, as well as a one-off DBS version – which utilised a Hillman Hunter tailgate, of all things.

DBS Estate (cont.)

It was ordered new in 1971 by a Scottish laird who fancied something suitably aristocratic for his frequent fishing trips.

To that end, the extended Aston featured split rear seats to accommodate his angling accessories, as well as a roof rack and even a leaping salmon mascot – which, sadly, is now long gone.

3. Atom

First mooted in 1939 and developed alongside Aston’s wartime work, the Atom was a complete departure for the firm.

A game-changing concept at the time, the Atom did away with a conventional chassis in favour of a ‘skeleton frame’ – an early form of the space frame still found in performance cars today.

Covered with aluminium panels, its streamlined shape and sleek curves were way ahead of their time.

Atom (cont.)

The Atom was an important car for Aston Martin: its unique qualities reportedly convinced new company owner David Brown that the key to the marque’s future success was advanced engineering – and the influence of this smooth machine can be clearly seen in the iconic DB machines that would follow it.

4. Bulldog

This utterly bonkers machine was more of a testbed than a concept and it sadly remained a one-off.

Work on the Bulldog began in early 1978 under the direction of Mike Loasby (who would later leave to join DeLorean – can you tell?) and William Towns.

The car used aluminium panels on a backbone chassis, the latter meaning that there was no need for sills: lift the gullwing doors and the entire lower section of the car would raise with them.

Bulldog (cont.)

Power came from a mid-mounted, twin-turbocharged 5.3-litre V8 that was reported to deliver almost 600bhp, while the interior was an intriguing blend of leather and liquid-crystal displays. Towns had apparently wanted the gauges arranged above the windscreen, but was overruled.

At the nose, instead of pop-up headlights the Bulldog’s front panel dropped to reveal a menacing line-up of five halogen units.

5. RHAM/1

Built to contest the Le Mans 24 Hours, this one-off racer was conceived by independent specialist Robin Hamilton.

Starting off with a standard DBS V8, the Aston was gradually modified beyond all recognition, to the extent that even its chassis number was changed to RHAM/1.

Given access to factory facilities for testing of the engine and bodywork upgrades, it wasn’t until an injection of sponsorship funds in 1977 that the machine would actually head to Le Mans.

RHAM/1 (cont.)

Finishing 17th in the ’77 race, RHAM/1 would return two years later only to suffer an engine failure. An entry had been on the cards for 1978, but with a maximum power output of 800bhp at 7200rpm (courtesy of twin turbochargers) fuel consumption dropped to a lowly 2.5mpg and the entry was withdrawn.

Its last hurrah? In 1980, it set a new Land Speed Record for towing a caravan, clocking in at 124mph.

6. DB3/6

Several intriguing – read: bizarre – bodies have been fitted to DB3s over the years, but surely none has suffered in quite the same way as chassis DB3/6.

In the mid-1950s, its engine was commandeered for use in a DB2, but it received a most acceptable replacement in the form of a Jaguar C-type unit. It later gained a two-tone, fixed-head body with ungainly chrome, but obviously that wasn’t absurd enough.

DB3/6 (cont.)

In the ’50s, it was further altered with the addition of gullwing doors and a third, centrally positioned headlamp.

Mercifully, the bodywork was removed at a later point and, in 1989, the rolling chassis for DB3/6 was sold by Christie’s for £185,000. It was then restored to its original, far more tasteful DB3 form.

7. Ogle Sotheby Special

Created in time for the 1972 Montreal Motor Show, the Sotheby Special was bankrolled by the Wills cigarette firm and named after its latest brand.

Beneath its Ogle-designed glassfibre skin lay a standard DBS V8, but there were extreme design flourishes everywhere – especially at the rear: an array of 22 lights adorned the entire back end of the car.

This arsenal of lights included indicators that lit up sequentially from the centre outwards and multiple brake lights – the harder your pressed the pedal, the more lights lit up.

Ogle Sotheby Special (cont.)

The original car was resprayed in a cigarette livery and presented to Graham Hill (Wills sponsored his fledgling Grand Prix team), while a second car was built – apparently to a much higher standard than the first – for one Mary Agate, a 60-year-old widow.

To celebrate the car’s completion, she hired the Silverstone circuit just to put it through its paces.

8. Donald Duck

Aston was clearly in experimental mood in the late 1930s: before the Atom came this valiant but ungainly effort developed by Claude Hill and Gordon Sutherland.

Based on the first 2 Litre saloon – which had been shown at the 1936 Earls Court Motor Show – the body was removed and a new frame was mounted on the chassis.

Donald Duck (cont.)

That frame was an early effort with the steel tubing that would go on to make the Atom so revolutionary, but its square section meant contours were limited. As a result, its awkward lines gave it the ‘Donald Duck’ nickname.

It was quick, mind, reaching 90mph over half a mile at Brooklands.

9. Razor Blade

This early single-seater from marque founders Bamford and Martin was intended to wrestle the one-hour light-car record from AC – which stood at 101.39mph.

Beneath striking aluminium bodywork made by the De Havilland aircraft company resided a 1.5-litre twin cam motor, producing around 55bhp. It was the car’s physical design, though, that was most remarkable.

Razor Blade (cont.)

Drivers of Adrian Newey’s claustrophobic early F1 designs would no doubt have sympathised with ‘Sammy’ Davis as he set off at Brooklands in 1923 on the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to beat the speed record: the so-called ‘Razor Blade’ was a mere 47cm across at its widest point.

What’s more, the machine – initially nicknamed ‘The Oyster’ – was originally going to be enclosed by an aerodynamic lid, but the plan was mercifully dropped.

10. Cygnet

Aston folk could bleat on all they liked about how the Cygnet’s bespoke interior used the same number of hides as could be found in a DB9, or how it shared only a roof panel with the Toyota iQ on which it was based – but the fact remained that the diminutive Aston was a £30,000 1.3-litre supermini, produced to cut the firm’s average emissions.

Cygnet (cont.)

Sure, it might not have been the worst car to wear the fabled badge, but it’s doubtless a candidate for the least credible.

Built between 2011 and 2013, the Cygnet was sold as a ‘luxury solution to urban mobility’ – and, while it was doubtless the most luxurious city car around, it hardly offered the sort of performance marque fans had come to expect. Cynical might have been a more appropriate name.