Cars
Le Mans obsession
This article tells the story of how Aston Martin achieved its long-desired victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1959, with the development of their new car, the DBR1.
Since his purchase of Aston Martin at the end of 1946, David Brown, who produced gears and gearboxes, had victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the top of his personal wish list. The first step was the acquisition of the rights to Lagonda and with them the designs of a six-cylinder engine with twin-overhead-camshafts, one of final projects of Walter Owen Bentley that would go on to form the basis for all future car successes of the Manufacturer from Gaydon.
This image, with several Aston models, represents the commitment of many years of participation at Le Mans with the very clear objective to win.
The first attempts at the French 24-Hour race, penalized by a lower displacement than the main competitors, did not go smoothly at all: seventh in 1952, retirements and accidents in ’53 and ’54 and a respectable second place in 1955 behind the Jaguar D which had a 3,800 cc engine compared to the 3,000 cc of the Aston DB3S driven by Paul Free and Peter Collins.
