1952 Goodwood 9-Hours Winning Peter Collins/Pat Griffith
1953 Sebring 12-Hours 2nd Place George Abecassis/Reg Parnel

1952 Aston Martin DB3 Works Team Sports-Racing
Two-Seater

Bonhams are delighted to be offering this 1952 Aston Martin DB3 Works Team Sports-Racing Two-Seater at our Goodwood Revival Sale taking place on 17 September.

This beautifully presented and - within its Historic racing category - provenly competitive Aston Martin DB3 sports-racing car is none other than the legendary marque’s contemporary works team-entered winner of the 1952 9-Hours race at the Goodwood Motor Circuit, driven on that occasion by the fine pairing of future Ferrari Grand Prix winning driver – and so very nearly the 1956 Formula 1 World Champion - Peter Collins and Pat Griffith.

This two-seat sports-racing car design with its muscularly-handsome Frank Feeley-styled light-alloy bodywork was introduced by the Feltham-based company in 1952 as its first sports racing prototype. The Aston Martin DB3 was designed for David Brown by German engineering director Dr Robert Eberan von Eberhorst.

The Aston Martin DB3 offered here – chassis DB3/5 – was the car driven at Silverstone Saturday by Lance Macklin – son of Sir Noel Macklin, pre-war Invicta sports car manufacturer, then mastermind of the wartime Fairmile motor torpedo boat and gunboat programme. Lance had become very much a mentor to the young Stirling Moss. He would drive the Aston Martin ‘DB3/5’ again in that year’s Monaco GP on June 2nd, run for sports cars instead of the Formula 2 single-seaters which that year qualified for the Drivers’ World Championship competition.

In the Le Mans 24-Hour race on the weekend of June 14/15, Macklin then co-drove the repaired ‘DB3/5’ with the fast-developing and increasingly exuberant British newcomer Peter Collins. Veteran team driver Reg Parnell then took over ‘DB3/5’ for the Jersey Road Race around the houses in St Helier, Channel Islands, on July 10, finishing fourth overall, and second in Heat three.

While these team cars had proved consistently competitive through that year it was only in their final outing of the season – in the Goodwood 9-Hour race on August 16, 1952 – that they finally won overall, the strong driver team of Peter Collins/Pat Griffith taking the chequered flag in ‘DB3/5’ as now offered here.

The DB3/5 has recently been sympathetically restored by the vendor owned MRM Motorsport, and is now presented in its original 1952 racing colours with its characteristic yellow nose. The distinctive dark green colour was used on all of the DB3 works team cars during the 1952 and 1953 seasons. The car is accompanied by an extensive documentation file including details of not only its contemporary international competition career in both works and private hands but also of its many Historic event appearances and performances within more recent years.

For more information on this car plus other lots in the sale, please click here

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