The second is its name. It is not a DB3, for that was a racing car, nor is it a DBIII despite that being how Ian Fleming referred to Bond’s first Aston Martin (in the books). It is not a DB2 Mk3 or III, but it is an DB2/4 MkIII and if that’s a bit of a mouthful then DB MkIII is an acceptable contraction.
But what is it actually? Really it’s the ultimate development of the DB2 which first appeared in prototype form in 1949 and, lest we forget, which was itself derived from the prototype Atom chassis which had gone into build fully 10 years earlier than that. So by the time the DB2/4 MkIII finally bowed out in 1959, the underlying design was fully 20 years old. Apart from its engine, whose design was completed by Lagonda engineers under the watchful eye and tutelage of WO Bentley in 1947.
When new in the DB2, the twin-cam, straight-six motor developed 105PS (77kW) from 2.6-litres, which equated to 40PS per litre, a perfectly reasonable output for the early 1950s. By 1957 and now with a 2.9-litre capacity, it gave 180PS (132kW) as standard on twin exhausts, a better than 50 per cent gain in specific output. There were throatier versions too, three of them, up to an including a full race motor said to be good for 217PS (160kW), or over double the output of an original DB2. That the car could easily handle such power spoke volumes for both the essentially rightness of the design, whose unusual trailing arm front suspension had come straight from the Atom. Its chassis system was revolutionary in 1939, using a box frame structure with square section steel tubing of different gauges according to strength and rigidity requirements.