



By N2H

Aston Martin

In the year 1913 a man names Lionel Martin teamed up with another good old chap named Robert Bamford, and together they created their very own company to create cars of their designs. You see, old martin used to race cars in Aston, and got up the gumption to make his own vehicle rather than race others with his friend Bamford. However, war disrupted this plan, and it wasn’t until after the First World War that the company was founded again as – you guessed it - Aston Martin. Bamford left in the good old prosperity of the great booming 20’s, however Martin stayed and the company built cars to compete in races of all kinds – they set records, world records, and became famous. However, they soon ran out of cash, and declared themselves bankrupt – only to be saved by Lady Charnwood who appointed (Nepotism Alert!) her son in the company board. His name was John Benson, and wouldn’t it be a surprise to find that just a year later the company again ran out of cash. A year after this the factory shut down, and then later that same year the investors decided to take over, renaming it again to Aston Martin Motors.

Leading up to the Second World war the company faced ruin two more times, having barely survived until 1947. That is when David Brown (limited) acquired the company and (David Brown owned David Brown Limited… big surprise there) another company called Lagonda, which allowed him to share the two together and give them better access to resources, not to mention work areas and production facilities. It remained fairly successful, then in 1970 it was bought by and sold by several people (quite a few). Finally after much turmoil Ford bought the company. They produced more models than ever – but in August 2006 the axe fell, in the middle of another fiscal issue… and the company was sold to various investors with Ford keeping a large foothold in the company. Aston-Motors has thus far been one of the most troubled car brands to still be alive today, and in my personal opinion, I am amazed it has kept on going through so many fiscal issues (I left out many, many more – as covering those would take about a thousand words).