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 At
Le Mans, with the cars entered by A.F.N. Ltd, the Newsome/Peacock
car retired with valve spring failure, the Cook/Bezzant
entry suffered the failure of the front wing support, a
problem that was to plague Bertelli until he added a reasonable
weight to overcome it, but Bertelli himself, ably supported
by C.M. Harvey, an Alvis exponent, came fifth overall and
first in the 1¾-litre class, the first of many successes
to come for Aston-Martin at Le Mans!
Harvey also produced
a class win at the Tourist Trophy that summer - what a competent
driver and how tragic that he should not long afterwards
take his own life! - but, despite these successes, money
was again short at Feltham!
Help came this
time from Lancelot Prideaux-Brune who ran a successful agency
for sporting cars in London, being the importer at one time
of the French Sénéchal light cars. His support
enabled Aston-Martin to introduce the Second Series chassis,
those 1931 racers having been the ultimate development of
the ‘International’ chassis. And of course Bertelli
could lay down three more new racers, LM8, LM9 and LM10,
these cars being distinguished from their forbears by adopting
V-pointed radiators. They yielded a further class win at
Le Mans (in the hands of Newsome and Swedish enthusiast
Henken Widengren) while Bertelli’s mount gained a first
in the Rudge Cup, the two finishing fifth and seventh respectively.
The inevitable
threat of bankruptcy loomed again however, but this time
especially good fortune came in the persons of Sir Arthur
Sutherland, a Newcastle ship owner, and his son Gordon,
who now took a firm hand and scythed through financial losses.
No new racers for Bertelli in 1933 was an immediate effect
and so for that year’s Le Mans entry Bertelli was reduced
to borrowing Morris-Goodall’s LM7, Harry Gryll’s
LM9 (he of later Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow fame) and putting
back into service LM10 which the works had bought back!
Yet a fifth and seventh overall was more than expected,
LM9 in the hands of Driscoll and Penn-Hughes producing a
third straight 1¾-litre class win for the marque. 
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Sutherland
yielded a little for 1934 and Bertelli was permitted to lay
down LM11, LM12 and LM14, his superstition accounting for
the absence of thirteen, but only Le Mans and the Tourist
Trophy were to be entered. After the previous year’s
hat-trick. Le Mans turned out to be a complete disaster for
the team, all three cars retiring.
Superstition was
called into play before the T.T. and the team cars were repainted,
replacing their ‘Irish’ green with a bright ‘Monza’
red - whatever the reason, their fortunes certainly changed
and the cars finished third, sixth and seventh with a class
win and the team award!
And so in 1935
LM18, LM19 and LM20 were built, but still in red! At Le Mans
Fotherington crashed LM19 badly at White House but the two
Charles, Martin and Brackenbury, came up trumps with a superb
3rd overall, scooping both a class win and first in the Rudge
Cup in LM20, Jim Elwes and Morris-Goodall bringing the third
car home in twelfth. A further new car, LM21, lined up with
others in the T.T. which yielded fourth, fifth and eleventh
places overall but the more coveted team prize yet again.
This turned out
to be the last Aston-Martin ‘works’ entry of a 1¾-litre,
as thoughts turned to a new 2-litre model but that began a
new era because Bertelli resigned in February 1937, his departure
signalling the end of a wonderful chapter in Aston-Martin’s
stormy history. There was still another class win for one
of his cars at Le Mans - in 1937 (no race in 1936) LM20 came
fifth overall driven by privateers the Hon J.M. Skeffington
and R.C Murton-Neale, the car easily eclipsing the H.R.G.
for the 1¾-litre category. No such luck, however, for the
French-entered LM18 in 1939 - the car retired with engine
trouble.
In addition to MCM’s recent
releases, the new range from Christian Gouel, SLM43, is also
offering several of the Aston-Martin Le Mans team cars.
For more info see the news pages.
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Readers
of recent issues of FSW will notice that I am currently in
British sports car mode and MCM’s recent issues of some
of the Aston-Martin 1¾-litres from the Thirties gives me ample
justification to have a deeper look at these famous machines.
Like so many specialised
marques, Aston-Martin’s history is full of ups and downs
but to me there have been two golden eras in the life of these
thoroughbred cars: the Bertelli period and the David Brown
era of the immediate post-war years. It is the former chapter
that commands our attention now.
It is impossible
to summarise sufficiently the changes in fortune of Aston-Martin
in so short a space and so I am going to jump in at the time
when the company in desperation turned to A.C. (Bert) Bertelli
and his business partner William Renwick for salvation. These
two had set up shop in Birmingham and had created the one
and only eponymous car which consisted of a new overhead camshaft
engine with patented wedge-shaped combustion chamber in an
old Enfield-Allday chassis, a marque Bertelli had raced in
earlier times.
It was a big moment
for Aston-Martin as these two men became directors of a newly-formed
company which was about to establish its headquarters at Feltham
on the Hanworth Air Park. We are in late 1926 and this ushered
in our "Bertelli Period". Basically, their new and
promising engine became the standard power unit of all the
1¾-litre Aston-Martins for the next ten years.
Bertelli firmly
believed in the value of racing not only as a source of development
but also as essential publicity for a small-scale sports car
manufacturer. Simplifying matters again as space demands,
we see the first real fruits of the new company at Le Mans
in 1928, when two cars, characterised by high-mounted headlamps,
gave the famous name its debut at the 24-hour race. These
cars, labelled LM1 and LM2 (a useful code for the identification
of all the succeeding Bertelli-inspired works racers), did
not last the pace, retiring respectively with back axle trouble
and a broken gear lever.
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Rather
wisely perhaps, the French classic was not attempted again
for the next two years, Bertelli preferring to make progress
in the newly established Double Twelve races at Brooklands,
which, of course, was just down the road from Feltham. In
1929, when was run the first of the new British races which
owed their existence to the prestige of Le Mans, Aston-Martin
ran LM2 and a new car LM3, the latter gaining a fifth place
overall. This machine also ventured across the Irish Sea to
score a ninth in the Irish Grand Prix at Dublin’s Phoenix
Park and, as a private entry, a retirement in the important
Tourist Trophy revived the year before on the fabulous Ards
circuit near Belfast.
LM3 and a new car
LM4 visited the Double Twelve and Irish Grand Prix in 1930,
LM4 gaining a fourth overall at Brooklands and a seventh at
Dublin, backed up by Bertelli himself bringing LM3 home in
twelfth.
All this activity
and a certain lack of expertise in business management on
the part of an enthusiastic team in charge of the company
did not yield a reliable income and Aston-Martin faced disaster
yet again. Temporary respite came from an unexpected quarter,
H-J Aldington, the power behind the throne at rivals Frazer-Nash
down the road at Isleworth! Aldington saw the potential of
Bertelli’s cars and generously took the financial plight
of the company under his wing for most of 1931, standing as
guarantor of a much higher credit limit than the banks were
prepared to go!
It was a magnanimous
gesture for both makes were contesting the 1¾-litre class
in competitions although, as we look back, we can see that
the Isleworth cars were more suited to the shorter and varied
events whereas the Feltham cars were more at home in the long-distance
events. The fact remains, however, that Aston-Martin would
probably have gone the same way as so many marques did at
that time of World recession had Aldington not helped out.
For Bertelli it
furnished the chance to build a fresh team of racers and LM5,
LM6 and LM7 gained a class win and 6th overall in the final
running of the Double Twelve in 1931.
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