DOUG NYE ON 2 VEV
The 2 VEV identity has actually graced two cars and both played an important role in Aston history. Doug Nye explains how a legend was born – twice
…and the full history behind it
ANYONE WHO actually attended the 1961 and 1962 RAC Tourist Trophy races at Goodwood will probably remember them for two things. The first is that the 1961 race saw Stirling Moss score his seventh and last TT win, in the Rob Walker-liveried Ferrari 250 GT Short W heelbase Berlinetta, while in 1962 it was a new-generation Ferrari 250 GTO that won outright – that time in UDT Laystall’s ‘British Grazing Green’ livery, and driven by Innes Ireland.
The second is that in both years British hopes of defending the flag against those darned Italian Ferraris were represented by the privately entered but quasi-works Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato Coupés belonging to Essex poultry entrepreneur John Ogier, and run under his Essex Racing Stable banner. His twin-sister cars of 1961 were road registered 1 VEV and 2 VEV. They were works-tuned to ‘lightweight’ specification and their drivers were the urbane, hugely experienced TT-winning veteran Roy Salvadori and new kid on the block, Scottish sheep farmer Jim Clark, just then making his name as a fast-rising F1 star in Team Lotus.
Their Aston Martin Zagatos – the twin ‘VEVs’ – proved by far the most spectacular cars on the Goodwood course. Their 3.7-litre straight-six engines sounded terrific, a baritone bray as counterpoint to the 3.0-litre Ferrari V12s’ descant, and the cars’ cornering attitudes – particularly in Jim Clark’s case – bordered on the extreme… in every corner.
In 1962, the Goodwood TT game was the same, underdog Astons waving the Union Flag in face of an immensely strong invasion fleet of Ferraris, but Graham Warner was this time teamed with Jimmy Clark (who by then had proven himself a Grand Prix winner and Championship contender), and, although Jimmy was driving a car registered 2 VEV, it was a different car from 1961’s 2 VEV.
The first two factory-prepared DB4 GT Zagatos had first been fielded by the Essex Racing Stable in the world’s most prestigious endurance race, the ’61 Le Mans 24 Hours. 1 VEV was co-driven by Jack Fairman and Bernard Consten, and 2 VEV by Australian stars Lex Davison and Bib Stilwell. Both cars fell foul of a preparation error by the Aston Martin factory, however, and they both overheated into retirement after the cylinder head bolts were inadequately torqued-down.
Ogier – having just paid £8762 for the two Zagatos (a 20% discount) – was apoplectic.
‘Clark staged a wonderful recovery, soaring to second before handing over to John Whitmore’
He was a wartime tank unit commander, a Military Cross winner, no less, and he was no man to be trifled with. Such an egregious error would not be repeated, and, in the 17lap GT event supporting that year’s British Grand Prix at Aintree, Lex Davison promptly won in 2 VEV, fighting a dramatic race-long duel with Jack Sears’ Jaguar E-type. He beat Gentleman Jack on the final lap as the wet track dried out and ‘Davo’ made best use of the last millimetre of tread on the Zagato’s hard-pressed Dunlop tyres.
For that year’s RAC TT race at Goodwood, Ogier’s team ran both Zagatos plus his older factory-bodied DB4 GT, for Salvadori, Jim Clark and Team Lotus no1 Innes Ireland. The two Zagatos were cast absolutely as the muscle-bound Anglo-Italian underdogs, defending the British industry’s honour against a horde of 3.0-litre V12 Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinettas, headed by those of Moss and Michael Parkes. Critically, the powerful, very fast Zagatos demanded four tyre changes for the three-hour race, against the Ferraris’ three. While Moss won for Ferrari from Parkes, the Aston fleet followed the V12s home third, fourth and fifth, Salvadori and Clark in the Zagatos and Ireland in the GT.
Innes Ireland then finished third with 2 VEV in the late-season Molyslip Trophy race at Snetterton, after delays caused by a minor collision in the opening laps.
In Spring 1962 the Aston Martin factory asked Ogier to loan 2 VEV to the Equipe National Belge for Lucien Bianchi to drive in the 15-lap, 211km Spa Grand Prix on the high-speed Spa-Francorchamps road circuit. Bianchi put it second on the grid and was leading the race ahead of all the rival Ferraris when he crashed heavily at Les Combes corner, rolling the car onto its roof. The car was fully insured and, although it was privately judged a write-off by the Feltham
factory, it was actually replaced in its entirety by the brand-new MP209 specification ‘Super Lightweight’ with subtly restyled Zagato bodywork – which is the 2 VEV now being offered by Bonhams.
The initials ‘MP’ in MP209 stand for ‘Master Project’ and, while 19 Zagatos are listed as having been built overall, only three of them – a very, very special trio – were completed to this specification. The new variants’ revised body shape offered greater aerodynamic downforce thanks to its longer nose combined with reduced aerodynamic lift at the rear of the cabin roof and the tail.
More dramatically, beneath this very thin 20-gauge alloy skin, the chassis was completely revised, now being a lightweight box-section ladder frame with riveted-on aluminium floor panels adding rigidity. The car’s suspension featured highly polished front wishbones, while the engine was slightly enlarged to 3.8 litres. Further weight was saved by use of magnesium-alloy castings for both the engine cylinder block and the gearbox casing. Overall, while the original DB4GT Zagato had weighed 2580lb (1171kg) – saving 218lb over a standard production DB4 GT – 2 VEV in its new MP209 form weighed just 2291lb (1040kg), a further 289lb saving and an incredible 507lb less than a production car. In effect the three MP209 Zagatos, including 2 VEV as she survives today, were Project 214 prototypes presaging the works team’s return to in-house racing come 1963.
The immediate result back in 1962 was that John Ogier’s 2 VEV in its newgeneration form combined the extreme straight-line speed and power that had challenged the Ferrari 250 GT SWB cars so closely in 1961 with under-developed handling that made road-racing the car at pinnacle level a job for Real Men.
Step forward South African Cooper works F1 driver Tony Maggs. He drove the car for Ogier in the World Championship qualifying 300km Trophées d’Auvergne race at Clermont-Ferrand on 15 July 1962, finishing seventh despite a cracked cylinder block that caused a severe water leak, behind five Ferraris and Ogier’s ‘subsidiary’ entry, Alan Rees’ Lotus 23, which came second.
Genius driver Jim Clark then rose to the challenge of driving 2 VEV in a second consecutive RAC Tourist Trophy back at Goodwood on 18 August 1962, and his spectacular progress around the Sussex circuit in this magnificent British Berlinetta remains the much-photographed stuff of legend to this day.
Jimmy was very quick on his feet and was actually first away from the TT’s Le Manstype run-and-jump start. As the race developed, John Surtees led for Ferrari with Clark haring round sixth in the tyre-hungry
2 VEV. But, after 60 laps, fresh from a tyrechange pit stop, Jimmy then glimpsed in his mirrors Surtees’ plum-maroon 250 GTO about to lap him at Madgwick Corner, so he held 2 VEV on the tight line to give his Formula 1 rival space to pass on the left.
However, Madgwick’s notorious hump unsettled the Aston Martin, for once Jimmy’s reflex correction failed, and 2 VEV spun across Surtees’ path, taking both cars into the outside safety bank. The two dented cars lay there for 30 laps until Robin Benson lost control of Chris Kerrison’s ex-Moss 1961 TTwinning Ferrari 250 GT SWB and crashed into them both, inflicting further damage.
The car was speedily repaired, and on 21 October was entered for the Paris 1000km classic at Montlhéry. Jim Clark and Sir John Whitmore co-drove it, Jimmy’s practice time third fastest overall and fully five seconds faster than the original 2 VEV’s best there the previous year. Jimmy ran fifth among the leading group until a grabbing front brake caused him to spin, losing six places. He staged a magnificent recovery, soaring back into second place before handing over to his friend – and sometime flatmate – Whitmore after 37 laps. But he reported that the engine was ‘tightening up’ and, after two brief laps, Sir John retired due to a holed piston.
John Ogier disbanded his team thereafter and for 1963 Aston Martin revived its in-house works operation with the fully developed Project 214 and 215 coupés, much having been learned from the farmer’s lightweight racing Zagatos of 1961-62.
This great car would be sold by John Ogier in 1964, its new owner then entering it for another Paris 1000km race at Montlhéry in which it was co-driven by Andrew Hedges and John Turner, until it lost third gear. After only three further private ownerships it was acquired in 1971 by Roger St John Hart, and it proved immensely successful as a Historic racer and sprint/hillclimb car driven by Nick Cussons and Roger St John Hart from 1969 to ’85, and again by Cussons during 1991-93.
2 VEV’s career was then punctuated by a nasty road accident on the Isle of Man, but it was painstakingly restored and prepared to concours condition by Aston Martin over two years. It has since been preserved within that one family’s ownership, bringing their long tenure of 2 VEV – ex-Jim Clark, exunderdog defender of the British Grand Touring car realm – to no fewer than 47 years. Think of the Battle of Britain Spitfire – and that’s just about the proper status for this Aston Martin Project car dressed-up in an earlier suit of clothes.
‘Madgwick’s hump unsettled the Aston, and for once Jim Clark’s reflex correction failed’