Amazing images of Aston Martin's luxury cars

Aston Martin is famous for producing one of the most luxurious and beautiful cars in the world. Let's have a look at some of its models.

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Aston Martin Lagonda Limited designs, manufactures and distributes luxury sports cars. Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford founded Aston Martin in 1914, creating the company name by combining Lionel Martin's surname and the location of the Aston Clinton Hillclimb near Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire, England.

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Aston Martin is based in Gaydon, Warwickshire, England, where all cars are manuactured except the Rapide, which is produced in Austria under contract by Magna Steyr.

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From 1994 until 2007, Aston Martin was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company, becoming part of Ford's Premier Automotive Group when it was formed in 2000.

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On March 12, 2007, a consortium of investors purchased 90 per cent of Aston Martin for 479 million pounds. The investors consist of David Richards, who led the group, John Singers, an American investment banker; and two Kuwaiti investment companies, Investment Dar and Adeem Investment.

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Aston Martin was founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford. The two had joined forces as Bamford & Martin the previous year to sell cars made by Singer from premises in Callow Street, London where they also serviced GWK and Calthorpe vehicles.

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Martin raced specials at Aston Hill near Aston Clinton, and the pair decided to make their own vehicles.

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The first car to be named Aston Martin was created by Martin by fitting a four-cylinder Coventry-Simplex engine to the chassis of a 1908 Isotta-Fraschini.

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They acquired premises at Henniker Place in Kensington and produced their first car in March 1915. Production could not start because of the outbreak of World War I, and Martin joined the Admiralty and Bamford the Royal Army Service Corps. All machinery was sold to the Sopwith Aviation Company.

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After the war, the company was refounded at Abingdon Road, Kensington and a new car designed to carry the Aston-Martin name. Bamford left in 1920 and the company was revitalised with funding from Count Louis Zborowski.

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In 1922, Bamford & Martin produced cars to compete in the French Grand Prix and the cars set world speed and endurance records at Brooklands. Three works Team Cars with 16-valve twin cam engines were built for racing and record breaking: chassis number 1914, later developed as the Green Pea; chassis number 1915, the Razor Blade record car; and chassis number 1916, later developed as the Halford Special.

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About 55 cars were built for sale in two configurations, long chassis and short chassis. The company went bankrupt in 1924 and was bought by Lady Charnwood, who put her son John Benson on the board. The company failed again in 1925 and the factory closed in 1926, with Lionel Martin leaving.

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Later that year, Bill Renwick, Augustus (Bert) Bertelli and a number of rich investors, including Lady Charnwood, took control of the company and renamed it Aston Martin Motors, and moved it to the former Whitehead Aircraft Limited works in Feltham.

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Renwick and Bertelli had been in partnership some years and had developed an overhead-cam four-cylinder engine, using Renwick's patented combustion chamber design, and had tested it in an Enfield Allday chassis. It was the only 'Renwick and Bertelli' motor car made. It was known as 'Buzzbox' and survives to this day.

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They had planned to sell this engine to motor manufacturers, but having heard that the Aston Martin car was no longer in production they realised that they could capitalise on the reputation of the Aston Martin name (what we would now call the brand) to give themselves a head start in the production of a completely new car.

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Between the years 1926 and 1937 Bertelli was the technical director of Aston Martin, and the designer of all subsequent Aston Martin cars during this period, these being known as the 'Bertelli cars'.

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They included the one-and-a-half-litre 'T-type', the 'International', the 'Le Mans', the 'MKII', its racing derivative, the 'Ulster', and the two-litre 15/98 and its racing derivative the 'Speed Model'.

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Mostly open two-seater sports cars and mostly bodied by Bert Bertelli's brother Enrico (Harry) a small number of long-chassis four-seater tourers, dropheads and saloons were also produced.

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Bertelli was very keen to race his cars and he was a very competent driver. One of the very few motor manufacturers to actually sit in and race the cars he designed and built, the competition no doubt "improved the breed" and the "LM" team cars were very successful in national and international motor racing including at Le Mans and the Mille Miglia.

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Financial problems reappeared in 1932 and the company was rescued by L Prideaux Brune who funded the company for the following year before passing the company on to Sir Arthur Sutherland.

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In 1936, the company decided to concentrate on road cars. Car production had always been on a small scale and until the advent of World War II halted work only about 700 had been made. During the war years aircraft components were produced.

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Despite the cars' appreciation in value, the company was often financially troubled. In 1972, the company was sold to another company called Company Developments Ltd., backed by a Birmingham-based consortium.

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The company was resold, following a further bankruptcy event, by the Receiver in 1975 to North American businessmen Peter Sprague and George Minden for 1.05 million pounds.

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A successful turn-around strategy led to the recruitment of 360 new employees and, by 1977, a trading profit of 750,000 pounds.

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The new owners pushed the company into modernising its line, producing the V8 Vantage in 1977, the convertible Volante in 1978, and the one-off William Towns-styled Bulldog in 1980.

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Towns also styled the futuristic new Lagonda saloon, based on the V8 model.

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In 1980 Aston-Martin had plans, which did not materialise, to buy MG, which they would have utilised as a sister marque, probably building smaller sports cars. Ideas were plotted to design a new model and they revealed to the press their approach to an updated 1981 model MGB.

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The company was badly hit by the economic contraction of the early 1980s as worldwide sales of Aston Martin shrank to three per week and chairman Alan Curtis together with fellow shareholders American Peter Sprague and Canadian George Minden came close to shutting down the production side of the business, to concentrate on service and restoration.

At this point Curtis attended the 1980 Pace sponsored Stirling Moss benefit day at Brands Hatch, and met fellow Farnham resident Victor Gauntlett.

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Gauntlett bought a 12.5 per cent stake in Aston Martin for 500,000 pounds via Pace Petroleum in 1980, with Tim Hearley of CH Industrials taking a similar share. Pace and CHI took over as joint 50/50 owners at the beginning of 1981, with Gauntlett as executive chairman.

Gauntlett also led the sales team, and after some development and a lot of publicity when it became the world's fastest four-seater production car, was able to sell the Aston Martin Lagonda in Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar.

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On March 12, 2007, a consortium led by Prodrive chairman David Richards purchased Aston Martin for 475 million pounds. Prodrive had no financial involvement in the deal. Ford kept a stake in the company valued at 40 million pounds.

The consortium also consisted of John Sinders, an Aston Martin collector, and two Kuwaiti investment companies, Investment Dar and Adeem Investment Co.

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