Descripción
This is lot number 220 in the Bonhams Goodwood Festival of Speed sale on July 12th, please see the Bonhams website for full details.
• Considerable important in-period race history
• Known ownership history from new
• Formerly owned by the Leyba family
• Present ownership since 2010
• Successfully campaigned at prominent Historic meetings including Goodwood and the Mille Miglia
• Eligible for the Mille Miglia, Tour Auto, Le Mans Classic, Goodwood and other blue riband events
Aston Martin is one of the most charismatic of all world-renowned motoring marques, and one that has connotations of tweedy British sportsmanship at its most civilised.
Here we are delighted to offer a wonderfully well-preserved and highly original ex-works Aston Martin team car which was prepared when new in 1950 to compete in the second postwar Le Mans 24-Hour race. Factory team entries had been registered with the organising Automobile Club de l'Ouest for three new sister DB2 coupés to represent the David Brown-owned marque. These cars were UK road-registered in order 'VMF 63' (to be co-driven by Reg Parnell/ Charles Brackenbury); 'VMF 64' (for George Abecassis/ Lance Macklin); and this car, 'VMF 65' (for subsequent long-term owner Eric Thompson and Jack Fairman).
Unfortunately, en route to the Sarthe circuit Jack Fairman missed a corner on a French road and overturned. It proved impossible to repair the body damage in time for the 24-Hour race, so 'VMF 65' was returned to Aston Martin's factory at Feltham, Middlesex. There, it was carefully rebuilt in time for Eric Thompson to drive it in the Daily Express One-Hour Production Car Race at the important BRDC International Trophy meeting just a couple of months later at Silverstone on 26th August.
Eric Thompson had two gearboxes seize in practice so started with a third installed: "... which I used for the first time at the Le Mans-type start," he recalled. "It had a low first gear which gave me a tremendous start, but then a huge gap to Le Mans ratios so I dutifully let my team-mates by...". 'VMF 65' completed a magnificent DB works team 2-3-4 finish.
This important team car's second race was the RAC Tourist Trophy – an International race that attracted the world's best manufacturers and drivers – on the superb Dundrod public roads circuit in Ulster. The driver was George Abecassis of HWM team fame, and ' VMF 65' duly finished 5th. Three weeks later at Shelsley Walsh hill-climb - an important event at that time - Abecassis clocked 47. 73secs in this car, and in early November it was shared by two of his HWM team drivers - none other than Stirling Moss and Lance Macklin – to contest the MCC Daily Express 1, 000-Mile Rally.
Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd then used it as their dedicated press road-test DB2. In this role 'VMF 65' featured prominently in The Autocar magazine of 17th September 1950 and in a John Bolster test in Autosport magazine's issue of 2nd March 1951, in which it was pictured upon the front cover.
Mr R. R. C. 'Rob' Walker - later to become the most successful private entrant in Formula 1 racing history with drivers Stirling Moss, Maurice Trintignant and Jo Siffert all winning Grand Prix races in his Cooper and Lotus cars - bought this DB2 in the Spring of 1951. In his ownership 'VMF 65' ran in the British Empire Trophy race at Douglas, Isle of Man driven by Abecassis, and Rob himself then competed with it in the Speed Trials at Ramsgate and on Madeira Drive, Brighton.
Le Mans-winning Major Tony Rolt, MC & Bar - of Ferguson Research and Colditz Castle PoW fame - took 3rd and 4th places with the car at Goodwood, and Eric Thompson then drove it again in its second RAC TT at Dundrod, finishing 8th.
Eric Thompson won with the car at Snetterton in May 1952, while Rob Walker scored a string of victories in Speed Trials at Ramsgate, Tarrant Hinton, Weathersfield and Gosport into 1954. That season also saw Roy Salvadori driving this immensely important Aston Martin to a race win at Ibsley in Hampshire, while at Fairwood in Wales none other than Peter Collins brought the ageing car home 4th.
In 1955 Rob Walker finally sold the Aston to Woking Motors, and by 1966 it had passed via various owners (list on file) to Nigel Mann who loaned it to the Le Mans Museum. There it was displayed until 1979 when its former works driver Eric Thompson acquired it. In 1981 Eric Thompson had run the car in the Dubai historic race meeting, and in 1987 it completed the Mille Miglia retrospective around Italy, crewed by Eric Thompson and the founding editor of Classic Cars magazine, Michael Bowler. The celebrated Autocar columnist Eoin Young then shared 'VMF 65' with Eric Thompson in the 1990 Pirelli Le Mans Cavalcade - where it ran again in 1992 and subsequently - both in the custodianship of Eric Thompson and after 1998 of the next owners. The car has also been a prominent participant in not only the Goodwood Festival of Speed but also the Goodwood Revival Meeting, and in the BRDC's Silverstone Historic Festival.
Eric Thompson would retain the DB2 for 19 years until it was sold via Brooks' Goodwood Sale to the Leyba family, the preceding owners, in 1998. While in the ownership of the enthusiast Leyba family, Aston Martin connoisseurs, 'VMF 65' was stabled alongside its sisters 'VMF 63' (sold by the Forshaw family via us to Robert Leyba in the late 1990s) and 'XMC 76'. At one time Mr Leyba owned no fewer than 38 Aston Martins. His son Oliver, who had raced all three of the family-owned DB2 team cars, rated 'VMF 65' as his favourite, hence it remains the last team car in the family.
The current owner purchased this historic team car at Bonhams' Aston Martin sale at Newport Pagnell in 2010 (Lot 328), since when it has shared a motor house with a select and carefully curated stable of Aston Martins. It has continued to be successfully campaigned at high-profile historic meetings. Indeed, this car has been one of the most actively campaigned works team Aston Martins throughout its long and illustrious life. While in the current ownership 'VMF 65' has competed at Shelsley Walsh (August 2013); Brighton Speed Trials (September 2017); Silverstone (August 2018); and Castle Combe (October 2018); and has appeared at the Brooklands Museum (September 2021). The Aston also competed at the Goodwood Revival meeting in 2018, where it was famously driven to victory in the Fordwater Trophy in the hands of noted Aston Martin works driver, Darren Turner. An article on this appeared in the November issue of Autosport (copy on file). Turner was to qualify 2nd, just 0. 123 seconds behind pole sitter Sam Tordoff's Porsche 356 and, it is fair to say, he would likely had the car on pole had he not left the handbrake on..!!
As offered here, 'VMF 65' is most handsomely presented, its blue radiator grille and large blue night-time recognition light on the right-rear quarter panel matching its original livery. Condition is generally good. Apart from ensuring the car is up to date with FIA regulations (new roll cage, uprated extinguisher etc) the car has been subjected to ongoing maintenance. The result is a nicely preserved Works Aston with the occasional cosmetic blemish and a lovely patina.
The car is accompanied by a continuation logbook chronicling the period 1958 to 1966, a V5C Registration Certificate, a FIVA Identity Card, and HTP papers quoting the engine capacity (annotated) as 2, 922cc. The engine presently installed is a racing-specification unit prepared by Rex Woodgate Ltd (a company now run by the veteran Aston Martin specialist's equally highly-regarded son, Chris Woodgate). This power unit breathes through three Weber 45DCOE twin-choke carburettors, and it is this engine that propelled both Oliver Leyba and Darren Turner in so many fine performances by 'VMF 65' at the Goodwood Revival meetings.
Also contained within the history file are sundry bills; various race results sheets; list of previous owners; events programmes; period magazines and photographs; expired MoTs; and a copy of the car's 'Washboard Register' entry.
This most-Britannic of Le Mans and Tourist Trophy Grand Touring cars, and one which has been driven competitively by so many illustrious British racing drivers, is today a veteran of the Mille Miglia retrospective, the Tour Auto and both of the magnificent Goodwood spectaculars. It is of course eligible for the Le Mans Classic and for a plethora of other blue riband events worldwide.
Above all, 'VMF 65' is a wonderfully thoroughbred member of a truly thoroughbred marque, and with a competition record including such names as Moss, Collins, Salvadori, Rolt, Macklin, Abecassis, Eric Thompson and Rob Walker - is rightly perceived as the perfect gentleman's competition car: a true gem in British Racing Green.
