Page 55 - Bespoke Issue

a team of mechanics on hand to make sure the car gets you there. Who wouldn’t want to drive the French Riviera or the Amal Coast in 1960’s Aston Martin DB6?
Well thanks to David Brown you sort of can... Not the Yorkshireman David Brown whose initials still adorn the latest Aston Martin... no this David Brown, also a Yorkshireman had a similar dream. Like his namesake David is a serial entrepreneur with a background in manufacturing and engineering and a love of beautiful cars. So, he formed David Brown Automotive and set about bringing the image of the timeless DB6 back to the road as a modern and drivable Gran Tourisimo, this was the birth of the Speedback.
David wanted to build cars that encapsulated all he held dear in terms of style, performance and quality, he wanted his cars to portray his passion for British engineering and craftsmanship so developing the Speedback GT, a car that truly re ects this in every tiny detail was not just a labour of love, but a true realisation of a passion into a tangible and very drivable machine. To use a very “millennial” term of phrase the Speedback is a “re-imagining” of the classic Aston Martin DB4,5 & 6 that I’m positive David’s namesake and original architect of those stunning GT’s would fully approve of.
I rst saw the Speedback a few years ago at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, but it was last March on the set up day of the Geneva Motor show that I really “saw” the car for the rst time. Amongst
the frantic stand builders putting nal touches to the stands and the detailers polishing the exhibits ready for the opening press days of the most in uential car show of the year there they were; two stunning examples one deep red and another light metallic blue in an oasis of calm. They were our car of the show and featured in last years “Cool Britannia” issue of Paddock Life Geneva show report. It wasn’t until the Top Marques Show
in Monaco that I met David Brown. Chris and I had just driven his second model, Mini Remastered, around the hills above Monaco and as we arrived back at the Grimaldi Forum David greeted us with “what do you think” a typically humble northern opener for a conversation. We loved the Mini, even though it was a preproduction test car, so still drove like an original mini at the time. It then took us almost a year to arrange to visit the new facility at
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