Aston Martin DB4 GT Jet

The Aston Martin DB4 GT Jet was originally finished in light green with contrasting grey interior and was lavishly trimmed in the best Aston Martin tradition, contrasting with the less well appointed, though lighter, Zagatos. Reminiscent of some Bertone creations on Ferrari chassis, this svelte notchback coupé is unique among DB4GTs as the only example bodied in steel, and would surely have made more of an impact had its Geneva debut not coincided with that of the Jaguar E-Type. A case of unfortunate timing if ever there was one, not that Bertone could be blamed for that. Giugiaro would body only one other Aston Martin, the DB7 Vantage-based ‘Twenty Twenty’ concept car of 2001, while a few years later Bertone revived the original idea with its ‘Jet 2’ on the Vanquish V12 platform. ‘0201L’ is known to have spent some time in Beirut before relocating to the USA, remaining there for several years before being rediscovered by Aston Martin Chairman, Victor Gauntlett, in the 1980s and shipped back to the factory. Quoted in Classic & Sports Car magazine’s May 2013 edition, Kingsley Riding-Felce, currently Managing Director Aston Martin Works, recalled: ‘The car was in a pretty sad state. It had suffered an engine fire. The bonnet was badly burnt and rust had taken hold in the steel bodywork. Only the sills plus the front and rear aprons are aluminium. Everything else is steel so Bertone must have made tooling, which suggests that it was hoping for a production series.’ Its late owner, Hans-Peter Weidmann, bought the Aston Martin DB4 GT Jet chassis ‘0201L’ from Victor Gauntlett while the car was undergoing total restoration to concours condition at Newport Pagnell under Kinglsey’s supervision. He recalled some of the problems for C&SC: ‘It was a big job because we had to make new door skins and fabricate replacement bumpers out of brass. It was quite a challenge configuring them to the body and getting the clearances right, but we wanted to keep it as original as possible. The instruments had to be redone and searching out missing switchgear in Italy proved quite a task. The Aston Martin DB4 GT Jet was very well made and clearly built to be driven. The styling of the Aston Martin DB4 GT Jet isn’t very Aston Martin but we never tired of looking at it.’