Anyway, I think the unique claim of DB3S/6 is that it’s Aston’s only chassis number to have finished on the Le Mans podium twice, first as a works car in 1955 with Collins and Frere driving, then again as an apparently obsolete privateer in 1958 driven by the Whitehead brothers in a race where barely a third of entry finished.
And, as luck would have it, a while back, I drove it. I wasn’t at the wheel for long and nowhere as exalted as Goodwood, but I was on a race track and had enough time to reach some reasonably meaningful conclusions about it. First, it felt fast in a way I had not expected. I guess because I always thought of the DBR1 as the first of the really brutal Astons, I’d not expected the DB3S to feel quite so rapid. But it was, its engine powerful and sufficiently free spinning for me to be extremely careful about making sure each new gear was selected before I trod on the throttle again, not that there was any problem with that for, unlike the DBR1, the 3S had a delightful gearbox.