DBS Aston Martin Tyres
DBS Aston Martin History
The William Towns designed DBS was available from 1967 until 1972, at the time the Aston Martin DB6 was still in production.
This 2 door, 4-seater began life with the same engine used in the DB6. In standard tune this 282bhp engine could propel the Aston Martin DBS to a top speed of 140mph. Vantage spec was available as a no cost option giving a claimed 325bhp. A new V8 engine was supposed to power the vehicle, but it was not ready until 2 years after the launch of the DBS.
The DBS did not achieve outstanding performance figures because of its weight. A mere 800 (ish) examples of the DBS with the six-cylinder engine were produced.
Eventually, in 1969, the V8 version became available called the DBS V8 Series 1. The engine was a new twin-cam V8 that was capable of producing almost 350 horsepower. This increased the DBS's top speed to an acceptable 160 mph!
The easiest way to tell the DBS and DBS V8 apart is by the wheels. Only the six cylinder cars came equipped with wire wheels. The extra power of the V8 necessitated the fitment of stronger alloy wheels.
In total only 405 examples of the DBS V8 were produced from 1969 through 1973. From 1973 the car was re named simply as the Aston Martin V8 and continued in production for twenty years.
Aston Martin Vantage History
The Aston Martin Vantage (sometimes called AM Vantage), introduced in May 1972 took over from the DBS, powered by the same six cylinder engine as the DBS. A two headlamp front grille was introduced ( instead of 4) with an updated grille and wire wheels where re introduced, the last time they would be factory fitted to an Aston Martin. This car, even though called a Vantage, was actually slower than the DBS V8 that preceded it!
Production of the AM Vantage lasted for a little over a year with only 70 examples being produced.
