by Russell Hayes
2025 review by Autolycus
It was with some trepidation that your reviewer approached this book. Any one-make title with the words Complete or Entire attached to a history is often a red flag. Readers should not be concerned. Within the limits of what can be achieved by any marque history, this is as Entire as could possibly be.
The first volume of this two-volume history of Aston Martin covers the 1910s to the 1980s and takes the story from the first days of the collaboration between Bamford and Martin to the Aston Martin and Lagonda V8s that came at the end of the David Brown era. Everything is here, from the use of an Isotta Fraschini chassis to test out components in the first prototype, through the Bertelli and Sutherland periods, through the constant financial problems and reinvestments, to the early V8s. Racing of single-seaters and sports cars is amply covered. The DP cars are not forgotten.
The second volume covers the 1980s to the present day, including such experimental models as the Bulldog and electric and hydrogen cars, and ‘hypercars’ such as the One-77. Racing is a substantial and well-covered part of this volume. And, naturally, there is an Appendix I on the James Bond cars. Appendix II deals with the continuation cars.
The book is very well written, in a style that captures and engages the reader’s attention. Your reviewer has not read every word, but could find no more than two tiny typos and one factual error: the vicissitudes of Britain’s horsepower tax rating led to high piston speeds, not low ones. Thanks are due to Russell Hayes for putting that in deliberately to check that your reviewer was reading the text properly…
The sidebars assist greatly in highlighting particular elements (examples including the Aston Martin rotary-valve engine in Volume 1 and a new structure for the cars in Volume 2) without disturbing the flow of the narrative. There are copious references, using superscript numbers in the main text that refer to endnotes at the end of each chapter. Once again, they allow the main story to speed along, but reward further delving. Many of the references are up to the standard of an academic work, citing precise sources; others give fascinating pieces of extra information. Both volumes have their own excellent indexes.
So, is the book the Entire story? So close that it is worth the cigar. Mention is even made of the ZF gearbox and why it was used, and its only problem against its extreme toughness and longevity: a whine.
There were only two strange omissions found — the second one perhaps too frivolous to have been in such a serious work. The first is that there is no mention of the Isotta Fraschini gearbox inherited with the prototype chassis, with side-by-side gearing, the constant-mesh gears at the back of the box and disengagement of them in top gear. The early production cars kept some of these features because they gave such a quick gearchange. These facts are in Aston Martin: The Story of a Sports Car, compiled by Dudley Coram in 1957, a book that does not appear in this book’s otherwise comprehensive bibliography.
The far less important and less serious omission is that Russell Hayes fails to mention that the manually adjustable shock absorbers on the One-77 have settings that go from 1 to 11— a nod to Spinal Tap. That omission can be forgiven.
In reading through the book, your reviewer realised how much more exciting the history of Aston Martin is than that of almost every other marque of car. Russell Hayes has brought that excitement to the page. This book is highly recommended as a superb history of Aston Martin that will provide a reference work for many years to come.
Publisher: EVRO Publishing https://www.evropublishing.com/
Price: £195 plus postage
Description: Two hardback volumes published without dust jackets, in a slipcase. 272mm x 223mm, 704 pages, 600 photographs in black & white and colour.
ISBN: 978-1-910505-60-1
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