Aston-Martin
Car : Aston-Martin
Year : 1922
Engine : 4 cylinders in line
Bore and stroke :65?112 mm
Cylinder capacity : 1486 cc
Gears : 4 forward
Brake horse power : 50
Maximum speed : 100 mph
Wheelbase : 8 ft 2 ins (2.48 m)
Suspension : front and back: semi- elliptic leaf- springs
Throughout its history Aston-Martin has had six changes of ownership, and has passed through periods of relative good fortune and (more commonly) periods of crisis. The main reason for this fitful progress has been the desire on the part of all its various owners to produce beautiful cars, even at the risk if reduced profits. The company has never compromised quality for lucre.

The company started, almost accidentally, in the 1920s under Lionel Martin and Richard Bamford, London agent for Singer. It was named Aston Martin after a hill-climb at Aston Clinton, which Martin had won in 1913. The idea of building cars themselves came to Martin and Bamford when why were adapting the Singer Ten for racing (calling it the B.M.). The vehicle in which Martin won the Aston Clinton was made up from a Coventry-Simplex engine (about 1500 cc) and an Isotta-Fraschini chassis. In its early manufacturing days Aston-Martin invariably used this same engine, but between 1921 and 1925 only 69 cars were built. The Coventry-Simplex had a fixed head on an alloy single block, similar in design to Bugattis of the same period. In 1920 Richard Bamford left the firm, and was replaced by Count Louis Zborowski, a gifted young man of Polish-American descent, who had made racing his life. Famous for the numerous ‘specials’ he had made, Zborowski was persuaded to finance the creation of an Aston-Martin car dear to Lionel Martin’s heart–sparkling as a Bugatti and dignified as a Rolls-Royce. From 1921 to 1925 Martin continued to use the Coventry-Simplex engine with side valves, which had as important record to its credit–that set by Kensington Moir at Brooklands in 1921 for the 1500 category.