Aston Martin’s oldest car prepares for its 100th birthday bash

Aston Martin will celebrate in style the one centesimal birthday of its oldest-recognised remaining motor vehicle. It will send out the 1921 A3 to the yearly Concours of Elegance using area in September 2021 on the near outskirts of London.

Fittingly, the Concours of Elegance is a single of the most prestigious motor vehicle shows in the world. It was initial held in 2012 to mark the sixtieth anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s reign in excess of the United Kingdom. It retains royal ties, so showing to the occasion in a bondo-coloured Renault eighteen is wholly out of the concern. Aston Martin’s A3 will healthy appropriate in, even so.

Its name signals that it is really the third motor vehicle developed by Aston Martin, and that it is really powered by a Variety A engine, which denotes a aspect-valve four-cylinder tuned to acquire about 11 horsepower. That’s a rounding mistake in 2021, but it was spectacular in the early twenties, and it authorized the A3 to set quite a few pace documents. It notably averaged in excess of 86 mph for the duration of a 100-mile occasion held at the Brooklands monitor, which 100 several years later is usually involved with Bentley.

Following extensive screening, Aston Martin sold the A3 in 1923. It was sold and purchased quite a few instances right up until it ended up in the fingers of a person named R.W. Mallabar. He shipped it back to Aston Martin’s headquarters when a connecting rod failed, and he asked the firm to refinish it in grey with purple wheels even though it was tearing apart the engine. The A3 then disappeared right up until 2002, when it appeared at an auction and its historical importance was uncovered.

Aston Martin obtained the A3 as a generous donation in 2003, and it commissioned Ecurie Bertelli to give it a entire — and painstakingly prolonged — restoration. Its frame was rebuilt from scratch with ash wooden, and it obtained a replica human body built with hand-crushed panels. It is really now black with black wheels, which is the livery it wore right up until Mallabar commissioned a respray. Its engine was rebuilt for the duration of the refurbishment, so it moves beneath its have energy.

No matter whether that signifies the A3 will drive to the occasion beneath its have energy has not been uncovered. Irrespective, when it will get there, it will bask in the sun (or get drenched by a late-summer season storm) following to a star-studded lineup of Gulf- and Martini-liveried race cars and other historically important equipment. It is really a minimal much too old to participate in the screen put together to celebrate the Queen of England’s ninety fifth birthday there will be a single motor vehicle for each individual yr that she’s been alive. All informed, in excess of 1,000 vintage autos (and at least a many liters of champagne) are expected.

Fans who want to look at out the Aston Martin A3 in human being will will need to journey to the Hampton Courtroom Palace in between September 3 and 5, 2021. Tickets are on sale now on the Concours of Elegance’s formal web site.