CAFÉ RACER 76

As Featured in ‘The Birds’: Aston Martin DB2/4 Drophead Coupé

It’s quite extraordinary how cars pop up in movies on a sometimes random basis. Who would have thought an almost 10-year-old Aston would appear in a Hitchcock film? One did, in the 1963 thriller ‘The Birds’.

According to marque historians, it’s possible that two cars were used, although Club records show LML/944 as being the one most closely associated with it. Hollywood connections apart, the fact is that a convertible DB2/4 (a later version of the car you see here), a ‘European import’, is just the sort of car to be driven by socialite Melanie Daniels (played by Tippi Hedren) in the quiet Californian seaside location depicted in the film.
The Drophead Coupé version of the DB2 was introduced in late 1950. Only a few months before, an attractive coupé was shown at that April’s New York Motor Show. With a modern chassis by Claude Hill, Frank Feeley’s timeless styling and Willie Watson’s (originally Lagonda) 2.6-litre straight six, the new Aston Martin - only the second-ever ‘DB car’ - was a winner.

It was also very expensive - £1,915 incl. taxes in 1950 for the ‘Saloon’ and £2,043 for the DHC in the UK. But with a series of successes on the track (the famous ‘VMF’ and ‘UMC’ team cars), and typical understated British bearing, the DB2 series of Astons which started with the DB2 itself and finished with the DB Mk III represented ‘the Feltham years’ of Aston Martin at its finest.

The DB2/4 was a later version of the DB2, with a revised rear chassis and smaller fuel tank. The two-door original, with its small ‘letter box’ boot, had been re-engineered to make it into one of the world’s first hatchbacks, offering greater rear headroom, two vestigial rear seats and the convenience of a mainly glass tailgate.

It was a popular and practical solution, helping create the ‘shooting brake’ image of the English gentleman in tweeds turning up at his peg, and then taking a brace of Purdeys from the rear luggage shelf of his Aston with ease.
The convertible, DHC version, on the other hand, simply said, “Sun, seaside and Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.”

This car is a DB2 Convertible from 1950 in the final stages of restoration by marque specialist Post-Vintage Engineers, and can be finished to your exact specification.

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The car seen here can currently be found in the Classic Driver Marketplace

Text: Steve Wakefield (Classic Driver)
Photos: Post Vintage Engineers Limited

Driven: Prototype Range Rover Sport – Featherweight World Champion

We were among the first in the world to drive a pre-production prototype of the new Range Rover Sport. And we were blown away...

When it was first announced that the all-new Range Rover Sport would be 420kg lighter (that’s equivalent to opening the door and kicking out five or six passengers), we dropped our coffee mugs in shock. Low weight is the new holy grail of the motor industry and this sort of weight saving is beyond belief.
Now, however, we’ve driven a pre-production prototype. And while the lower weight is still astounding, there is much more to the new Range Rover Sport than that.
If we had to pick one outstanding feature of the all-new, all-aluminium, ultimately sporting SUV, it would be the combination of handling and ride: the way this tall vehicle stays flat through corners, yet on rough surfaces the ride is compliant rather than spine-shattering as you might expect, given the lack of body roll.

Drive the Sport fast into a corner on Land Rover’s private test track at Gaydon (we were forbidden to take the prototypes out in public, beyond the heavily manned gate of the manufacturer’s own facilities) and keep accelerating – harder and harder through the bend – and while you feel the lateral g-force pressing you sideways, the Sport stays flatter on the road than you’d think possible. Not only that, the torque vectoring – increasing torque to the outside wheels – means you’re cornering at speeds where you’d normally expect your front or rear tyres to lose traction, yet the (still 2.1-tonne) Sport stays firmly, grippily, planted on the track.

This is no Range Rover with a Sport badge and a few cosmetic tweaks; around 75% of it is unique. As part of the design process, Land Rover asked existing customers what they’d like and apparently the consensus was, “Please make it more Range Rover and more sporty.” Er, right.

Well, it goes without saying that the latest Sport is packed with premium features, from rear seats that not only recline, but are also heated and cooled (yes, the rear seats), to 14-way adjustable front seats, a head-up display and – an industry first, this one – wade sensing, to give you confidence in deep water… but then you expect premium features in a Range Rover. You expect best-in-class off-roading ability and stonking performance, too. But while Land Rover can tell us in writing that the new Sport has “30% better handling than its predecessor”, it’s only when you’re pressing it hard through ever-tighter corners that you really believe it.

Text: Charis Whitcombe classic driver
Photos: Land Rover