Aston Martin: Made in Britain

by Ben Collins

From bestselling author, racer and stunt driver Ben Collins - the man who was The Stig - comes a story of spies, speed and hard-driving a driver's love letter to one of the world's best-loved machines.Aston Martin's first, wickedly fast models were forged at a time when Ferrari's premises at Maranello was nothing but a ploughed field. This book celebrates a century of innovators who kept the fire burning brightly for over a century, from the visionary pioneers Martin and Bamford to modern-day design guru Adrian Newey; from a glamorous web of pre- and post-war spies and racing drivers, to David Brown and the achingly beautiful DB models beloved of Bonds past and present.Ben Collins explores the car with the double-o prefix from a unique perspective behind the wheel, carving through country lanes in his father's V8 Vantage, driving Aston Martins in four James Bond movies and competing against them in the legendary Le Mans 24-hour race.Ultimately, this is a very British success of a triumph of engineering that has burned brightly from the Roaring 20s to the 2020s, and an iconic car that never says die.

Genres: Nonfiction, Cars, History

264 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 15, 2020

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're not a keen car fanatic like me, look away now. I loved it anyways.

I have been an Aston Martin fan since 2012 after driving a stunning black DB9 Volante as a driving experience. I had a further 2 more experiences with a V8 Vantage and so my love bloomed for AM from then on.

I have various books about the marque and the quarterly magazine called Vantage so I get the gist of the history of this Great of British Racing marques but this book put a fact into lovely juicy tales that keeps you interested. Some of the famed characters come to life (again) with these tales. Breathtaking accounts of races from the past, important ones or not.

There are even some little gems mentioned in this book like speaking about Solo, one of the side stories of Star Wars. Of course you can't write about Aston Martin without mentioning James Bond so it's delightful to read about the latest (and as yet unseen) film No Time to Die.

One annoying occurrence for me was everytime Aston Martin was mentioned, it was shortened to Astons. Now sorry but I would be much happier if it was just Aston. Sometimes the end S was correct but mostly it wasn't and it was annoying but I'll overlook it this time.

Being a fan of Aston, I will most certainly be keeping this book in my AM collection and am excited to see where the marque goes on from here.

Aston Martin Racing still continues on after winning in their class the LeMans of 2020 but now after being taken over (yet again) the big chiefs have chosen to return fully to Formula 1 after being partly mentiomed with supporting the Red Bull Racing team so it's good that Aston returns to it racing history of F1. Will Ben write a second book on the marque following all the F1 adventures? I hope so.

I love the cover of this book so I plan on storing this book on my bookshelf forward facing rather than spine facing ... just so you know.

[J R Boote · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was given this book for Christmas and had been really looking forward to reading it.
I wouldn't read this expecting the definitive history of Aston Martin. The 1970's seems to have been glossed over.
There were some interesting anecdotes. The book starts off well but in some places, I thought 'why he is telling us that?'
In the chapter detailing what happened between the end of the Second World War and 1959, Collins decides to tell us about a scene he filmed for 'Skyfall' where he drove a DB5 out of a lock-up in London. Shouldn't this have been in the next chapter as the car was built in the 1960's when the DB5 was built or 2012 when the film was made, not the 1950's?
Collins has driven in the latest Bond films so I expected something about the DB10 in Spectre. The book ends with the filming of the pre-credits sequence of No Time To Die. I found that some of the anecdotes were more about Collins and weren't particularly interesting.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked up in The Works because the cover is nice and, although I know little about cars, I do like stories of British engineering (and James Bond). There's also a lot about interwar motor racing, which is full of interest for the characters involved and the details of the tracks as well as the cars.

Collins's style is accessible and engaging, broken up into easily-read chunks, and, in spite of my fears, pretty free of macho gung-ho stuff (except in the sections relating to Top Gear, in which I have negative interest). I sometimes had trouble remembering who was on which team (not a euphemism), and this wasn't helped by the author switching between first names and surnames.

I lopped off a star for referring to the Avro Vulcan as a '1980s' bomber, then gave it back for liking the Living Daylights Aston best of all the Bond cars.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent read on a car company I’d obviously heard of but knew little about. Obviously a tale of near misses and near extinctions but against the tradition of most other British automotive companies Aston defied the odds. The last couple of chapters were less engaging for me in terms of explaining the engineering side of things, but this could suit others perfectly. All in all a good read, worth getting if you’re at all interested.

[Jemma · Rating 2 out of 5]

i didnt enjoy it much. i found it had too little about the enjoyment of the brand and the actual forging, whereas it had so many random tangents thrown in it was hard to keep track. it was tedious and not a good read overall - very boring. however, i did enjoy the cameos towards the end, involving the top gear trio and also the development of the vantage, and the valkyrie by adrian newey.

[Jay · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a strange book, an often confused and indigestible mixture of racing stories, the author's personal experiences, irrelevant stuff about World War II and bits related to James Bond films, not all of it accurate and a lot of it not even about Aston Martin.

Full review: https://rorschachianreview.wordpress....

[Ollie · Rating 3 out of 5]

More about Ben Collins life instead of the car, but over all still a family good book

[Timon Salomez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely written and such a great story too. Beware though: this is car nerd central 😁

[Jose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sympathetic book on Aston with some of Ben Collins own personal stories, fast paced and at times disjointed but pretty good read. Glad my Lady got me this as a gift.

[Kamila Turek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nie wiedziałam że Aston ma tyle wspólnego z Fordem

[Andrew Blythe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting trip through the history of an Iconic British racing bread and its involvement with 007 on the silver screen, Told by another British icon, on as many school boy bedroom walls, The Stig

[olivvka]

Nie przekonała mnie do siebie

[Stephen Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really interesting book, packed with everything you would want to know about this fine car brand from its beginning to the present day. I learned a lot about Aston Martin that I had previously not known.

I adore the cars and have felt that way all my life.

However..........I'm not technically minded and if I'm honest, a lot of the mechanical stuff went right over my head. I didnt understand it and therefore a 3 star rating as I found it hard to get my head around.

A fine book nonetheless.