1939 2-Liter Monoposto Speed Model

Back in 1966 I bought the second serious car I ever owned, a 1958 Aston Martin DB 2/4 Mk.III—the last production car before the DB4 came along and brought Aston Martin into the modern age. My insurance broker struggled to get coverage for the Aston, there not being many “Austin-Mertons”, as he put it, in Pennsylvania at the time! I hill climbed and auto-crossed it, and I believe it was probably the only Aston ever raced on a dirt track, such were the facilities we had in central Pennsylvannia at the time. At Monaco in 1969, I happened to tell Denis Jenkinson about it while a group of Aston owners were having dinner during Grand Prix week. He approved of it as the last of the “proper pre-war sports cars”, not disguising his preference for older cars and also seeing this David Brown product as still strongly connected to Aston Martin’s pre-war heritage.

Strangely, I don’t think I’ve driven an Aston since, so an invitation to try the very rare beast you see here was quickly and gratefully accepted. I thought my old Aston knowledge would return and I would rapidly be able to place this car amongst the many I used to go see at Aston Martin Owners Club meetings years ago. This was a mistake. This is indeed a unique and little-known car, only recently discovered and restored by Ecurie Bertelli’s Andy Bell. The story was, however, seminal, a quintessential piece of the long Aston Martin competition story.