Petrolicious went to to Germany to find a man who didn’t want to spend his money on a house, expensive suits or watches. Instead, he sacrificed his savings for a 1971 Aston Martin DBS V8. A man after our own hearts.
I said it before and I’ll say it again: the last David Brown-era cars, those Aston V8s from the ‘70s are Europe’s ultimate muscle cars, our Pursuit Specials; the heavyweight beasts that just keep on burning a ridiculous amount of gasoline while making a proper noise all day long.
Aston Martin only sold 787 DBSs between 1967 and 1972, most with a straight-six. Then came the V8s, and while these cars might have been built like something Jeremy Clarkson would end up with after you gave him most, but certainly not all of the correct parts, none of gimmicks mattered as long as you managed to fire up those torquey engines.
I drove a standard Series 3 V8 running on totally gone tires while we slowly got high off the leaking fuel tank, and despite many of the original horses were long gone and having a Chrysler three-speed automatic instead of ZF’s five-speed manual, it felt perfect in every way. Which means a sorted DBS can only be better than perfect.
Petrolicious’ latest movie proves my theory:
Roger Moore had a Lotus submarine, a Volvo P1800 and a DBS six-cylinder disguised as a V8. Not bad!
Contact the author at mate@jalopnik.com.