Jewel in the dust: the story of a unique Aston Martin

In 1967, it was seen as “just an old car”, a scruffy pre-war roadster lurking in a lock-up garage.

But it really wasn’t just any old car and, even though Robert Jervis didn’t know it at the time, that tired-looking sports car was a very special machine indeed – one of just 23 Aston Martin Speed Models ever made.

And the £325 that the farmer paid for the Aston, equivalent to about £5,700 in today’s money, is surely one of the bargains of the 20th century given its current six, or even seven, figure value.

Not that Robert, who was 21 when he bought the car and has owned it for more than 50 years, would ever consider selling it, even though its sister car – the famous Red Dragon – has been valued at a staggering £1.75million.

One day the car, which is the only original metal-framed racing Aston Martin Speed Model, will pass to his sons Tom and Henry, the latter having driven the car in the 2015 Mille Miglia.

It’s become a family heirloom

“I count myself extremely lucky to own it, and I’d never consider selling it,” says Robert, now 72. “I’ve had it so long that it’s become a family heirloom.

“It’s a shame things like this are so valuable because ordinary people can no longer afford to buy them and they have become rich men’s toys.”

Robert’s car, registered DGJ 242, was built to race, bearing chassis number 704 and the fourth of the Bertelli 2-litre Speed Models produced by Aston Martin, a development of the successful 1½-litre designs.

Rumours that a larger-engined car was imminent were confirmed when two entries were made in the 2-litre class of the 1936 Le Mans 24-hour race.

That race was cancelled because of industrial action and political strife in France, and Aston Martin sold off the two prototypes and withdrew from racing altogether, but not before two further cars were prepared for the same year’s TT at the Ards course in Northern Ireland.

One of these was a factory-backed car, now known as Red Dragon, driven by the legendary Dick Seaman; the other was Robert’s, chassis number H6/704/UR, a private entry prepared by the works team and piloted by wealthy American amateur Alan Phipps.

“Mine did three laps, then he stuffed it over a straw bale and that was the end of that race,” says Robert, showing us the car in a garage it shares with an Austin 7 fabric saloon.

“The other car went on to be very competitive. It was beating a national team of BMW 328s, which were generally acknowledged to be the best car for that sort of race, until his engine seized because they’d made a mistake with the oil feed.”

Following its TT crash, Robert’s car was rebuilt and pushed into a garage, laying idle until after the war.

From 1946 to 1953, the Aston enjoyed success in racing and hill climbs before going through a succession of owners and ending up in a lock-up in Berkshire.

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Lifelong passion

That’s where, in 1965, a 19-year-old Robert first laid eyes on the car which would prove to be a lifelong passion.

“I was visiting a friend and he said ‘you will be interested in this, go and have a look in that shed across there’. I must have shown some sort of interest in old cars by then,” he says.

“He was letting this garage to a chap who was a maintenance engineer with the water board down there. In those days, these old cars were just not valued, they were looked down on – it was just thought of as an old car.

“There were still a few pre-war cars on the road, but not many, and you could pick up an Austin 7 for a fiver.

“I had a look and I had no idea what it was. I could see it was an Aston Martin, which is a special name, but I didn’t know anything about the car other than that.

“He’d been fiddling with it, but it was not in very spectacular condition. It had no seats and no floor. I said if it ever comes up for sale let me know.

“Two years later he rang me up and said ‘if you want that car you can have it, it’s for sale’.”

Rare treasure

Still none the wiser about the rare treasure he had unearthed, Robert headed back to Lambourn, agreed to pay £325 and returned with the Aston…on the back of a coal lorry.

“I still didn’t know what I was getting, but I thought ‘right, I’ll buy it’, and I managed to scrape the money together and that was that,” he says. “It cost about the same at the time as a two or three year old Morris Minor.

“A friend of mine had a contract to take coal to Didcot Power Station, so I went with him one afternoon, dropped the coal off and went on to Lambourn and rolled it from a village garage ramp and into the back of this six-wheeled coal lorry.

“We took it to a local garage ramp and rolled it off the lorry and I drove it back. The engine was spitting and spluttering, but it kept going.

“Later, on inspection, I found that there was water in the oil, which indicated something seriously wrong. I started to take it apart but because I didn’t know much about Aston engines at the time I had to send it away to a specialist who rebuilt the engine.

“I started tidying up the rest of it, working on the body, which was in poor condition.”

Robert had honed his skills at the local garage, according to his wife of 50 years, Jane.

“He used to spend hours, days down at the garage observing and finding out things,” she says, in the farmhouse kitchen looking out over the rolling Warwickshire countryside.

“He’s never been able to have anything without taking it apart and finding out how it works.”

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Raw-boned racer

“They were very helpful,” adds Robert. “At 21 I was beginning to get into the maintenance of machinery on the farm. I’ve always had a mechanical bent and an affinity with metal. I like rebuilding things.”

All those hours in the garage paid off when Robert got the 130mph Aston on the road in 1969 after a two-year home restoration, painted in a dark, Jaguar blue.

Not that Jane especially enjoyed the thrills of this raw-boned racer.

“It is an uncomfortable, hard ride and I feel as if I’m going to bounce out. But it is fun being in the open and smelling all the smells,” she says.

“We went up to Yorkshire to visit friends when the M1 was new. We came back down in the rain and that was fine because the rain just flew over the top when you are going fast.

“We didn’t know how fast, because the car has no speedo, only a rev counter. When we had to stop at the traffic lights, we put up an umbrella.”

By now, Robert knew much more about the history of the car.

“I knew by the time I had rebuilt it that it was a rare Speed Model,” he says.

Unfortunately, after driving the Aston for two years, the engine started to leak water into the oil once more.

“There was a score down number four cylinder,” Robert says. “I took it all apart and started again and completely rebuilt it, starting properly in 1976.

“I noticed that the chassis was badly bent, and one side at the front was 1.5 inches higher than the other, which I’d failed to notice originally. It had had five crashes in its racing life.

“I straightened it all out on the farm and welded up all the surplus holes drilled into the chassis over the years. It was a long rebuild – I spent years at it.”

This wasn’t the only project that Robert had embarked on, having picked up a badly damaged 1933 Rolls Royce 20/25 Barker limousine for just £150 in 1968.

During the Aston’s long rebuild, Robert set about learning as much as he could about the car’s history, amassing a huge file of information including correspondence with former owners.

He spoke at length with Birmingham industrialist Noel Bond-Williams who, along with his friend John Rowley, raced the car with some success in the late 1940s.

Covered in dust

“I remember him telling me he went to Friary Motors at Windsor and the car was in the back of the garage covered in dust, just as though it had come off the race circuit,” says Robert.

“Bond-Williams already had a Speed Model road car which he had used for competition a little bit, and he bought this one purely for racing. He was successful in racing and hill climbs.”

This Aston was developed extensively during his ownership together with his friend St John Horsfall, a talented engineer and successful driver. They carried out continuous engine development in conjunction with SU Carburettors, Dunlop Racing and KLG Plugs in pursuit of speed and reliability.

Bond-Williams wrote to Robert in June 1990, as the car’s long restoration was nearing completion.

“I am glad to hear that DGJ 242 is in good order – I had mentally written it off when it was in the hands of B Baxter – it then was, by hearsay, not much good,” he wrote.

“When I bought it it was pretty original, but with a special camshaft. We applied the Horsfall treatment (named after St John ‘Jock’ Horsfall) and gave it various modifications.

“The last time I drove the car was in the Daily Express Production Car Race at Silverstone. We had had some big end trouble during practice, which involved several strip downs, and on the last one a very tired mechanic failed to tighten up the sump plug. It fell out, so did the oil, and I retired after an interruption of power which led to spinning off at Maggots.

“Before being able to get her going again I suffered a fairly serious abdominal operation and for quite separate reasons my company’s bank manager preferred me to give up racing. He had had one fright, I suppose.

“I sold the car to B Baxter, who drove the car without much regard or much maintenance, as I hear that it was written off.”

Back in 1949, Bond-Williams was testing at Silverstone when Aston engineer John Wyer sent his pre-production DB2s on to the circuit.

“Ultimately, we achieved practice speeds that caused John Wyer to think, as we put in some laps at Silverstone more quickly than his DB2s!” wrote Bond-Williams, who played a prominent role in bringing the NEC to Birmingham and died in 2003 at the age of 89.

Robert adds: “John Wyer was a bit upset that this guy in a pre-war car was going round Silverstone faster than his DB2s.”

It wasn’t the only time the car upset the Aston applecart, with renowned pre-war expert Bill Elwell-Smith, hugely influential in the owners’ club racing scene, beaten in his 1½-litre car at Silverstone in 1950.

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Weren’t regarded as desirable

“He was a 1½-litre aficionado and he had a lot of influence in Aston Martin racing circles,” says Robert. “There was nothing really special about the 2-litres in his opinion and, of all the road cars, they weren’t regarded as desirable, especially the Speed Models.

“The Aston club held races every year at Silverstone and they had a race for pre-war cars called the Horsfall Trophy, a 10-lap handicap race. My car and Elwell-Smith’s 1½-litre were in it.

“The handicapper was R G Sutherland (the former owner of Aston Martin) and cars were let go at timed intervals. Mine was possibly the only 2-litre in the race and it was still on the start line when the first cars began to appear. Bond-Williams took off and at the end of the race he and Elwell-Smith came round the corner absolutely together, and the judges had a struggle to determine who had won. Mine won by a wheel.”

Baxter won the St John Horsfall Trophy in DGJ 242 at Silverstone in 1952, before racing for the last time at Snetterton in Norfolk the following year.

“At that time it was becoming outclassed by modern cars,” says Robert, who completed his marathon restoration in 1991, repainting the car in its original, and striking, French blue colours.

“It took a long time because I was running the farm as well as rebuilding the car.”

Disaster very nearly struck, however, within a fortnight of the Aston’s return to the road as Robert was on his way to show the reborn car to Bond-Williams’ son, who lived nearby.

“I was waiting at a crossroads and there were two vehicles on the main road, each turning right from opposite directions. They hit each other and bounced a Mini into my front wheel.

“The driver of the Rover had been looking at the Aston, not the road. The damage was limited to a bent front mudguard and drag link.

Austin Marina

“The local news report of the accident described the car as an Austin Marina! I have a friend who now consistently refers to the car as an Austin Marina.”

By now, the Speed Models were increasing in value, and considered the top pre-war Aston for historic racing.

Not that Robert was tempted to take to the track, preferring to enjoy his car for summer jaunts in the beautiful surrounding countryside.

On one such outing to a local pub, Robert and Jane returned to their car to find a “chap scratching his head looking at it”.

“‘I used to have one of these,’ he said. I could tell he knew a bit about Speed Models,” adds Robert.

I was sure he was going to kill himself in it

“This chap said ‘I sold it to a young farmer and I wish I hadn’t now. I was sure he was going to kill himself in it’.

“This was the man who had owned the car 25 years before. It was an amazing coincidence. He still lived at Lambourn, and had come out to the Cotswolds for a day’s drive. We didn’t recognise each other at all.”

In 1993, the Aston got a new engine block, thanks to an enterprising engineer in the Aston Martin Owners Club, who decided there may be a need among 2-litre owners with tired, pre-war engines.

“He wanted 10 people to commit to make it viable, and I bit his hand off and said ‘definitely’,” says Robert.

“The original engine, which I’ve still got, was very tired. The firm that rebuilt it back in the 80s tried welding the block to remedy the water leaking into the oil, but it would just open up another crack.

“The con-rods have a nasty habit of breaking, and the original cylinder block shows signs that one’s gone through the side because there’s a big patch on it.

“When the chap was halfway through making the blocks, people had started to ask about cylinder heads as well and I ended up with a new block, head, pistons, and steel con-rods. Everything is much stronger now, but everything is to the same dimensions and I’ve got the old engine, which would still work.

“But I feel more secure now if I want to thrash the engine, whereas before the new block I was careful not to drive it too hard.

“He did a really good job, and it was not too expensive.”

The 23 Speed Models made came in a variety of body shapes, and Robert’s retains its original metal body built by Aston owner A C Bertelli’s brother Harry.

Truly unique pre-war Aston

As the only surviving metal-framed race car, Red Dragon having been remodelled, the car is that most rare of beasts – a truly unique pre-war Aston.

A recent documentary about Astons showed footage of both cars in action in that fateful 1936 TT.

Jane says: “What was precious about that TV programme is that it showed the back of Robert’s car clearly.

“People sometimes don’t believe that was the original shape but we have now managed to get a photo of it in the 1936 TT.”

“There was a section on Red Dragon, the sister car to mine,” adds Robert. “They were identical when they were built so it was interesting to see the shape of that one and that it was the same as mine.”

It was Red Dragon’s participation in the 1937 and 1938 Mille Miglia in Italy that allowed Robert’s car to qualify to apply for entry to the 2015 renewal.

There can be 3-4,000 applications each year, with only 400 and accepted.

A long-standing friend had offered to finance the trip if he could drive the car.  Robert’s younger son, Henry was co-driver with Robert going as technical support.

The friend paid for the car to undergo an extensive pre-race check-up at Aston pre-war specialists Ecurie Bertelli.

“The first thing they do is take it for a test drive, and a day or two after I had taken it over I called them and asked them if they’d had a run in it?” says Robert.

“‘Yes’, was the response, ‘it’s a bag of nails! No, really it’s very good – it’s one of the best, up there with Red Dragon’.

“They took the gearbox out, and there was a crack in second gear, which I knew about and was not serious. That gear wheel is unusual to my car, having one more tooth than the other Speed Models. A new one was made and fitted.”

The car survived the 1,000-mile Mille Miglia unscathed, apart from a blown fuse on the electric fan, added by Robert back in the 1970s after an overheating incident en route to a show at Crystal Palace (“a friend followed in a Mini van with five gallons of water!”).

These days, the 82-year-old car – a pure-bred racer as sprightly and raucous on the road as when it was prepared for that first outing at Ards – spends its days blasting around the heart of England and attending club and national events, including the Goodwood Revival.

The car’s image is displayed on the Wall of Fame in the Aston Martin factory in Gaydon, where all current models are built, a clear nod to the historic importance of a car bought for just £325 from a lock-up garage.

If there were ever any doubts about the car’s worth in the post-war era, there can be none now.

Pictures by Simon Finlay.

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