The long-time collaboration between British sports car marque Aston Martin and Italian coach-builder Carrozzeria Zagato, currently exemplified by the limited-production Vanquish Zagato, dates all the way back to 1960, when Zagato began a run of 19 lightweight-bodied DB4 GTs to give Aston customers a weapon capable of taking on Ferrari.
Of those 19, three were special ultra-lightweights, two of which were campaigned by the semi-works Essex Racing Stables team, including entries at Le Mans, They were driven by such now-famous drivers as Jimmy Clark and Stirling Moss – and in a later era by Denny Hulme.
It’s one of those two 1961 DB4 GT Zagatos, known as ‘2 VEV’ for its road-going license plate, that is scheduled to be auctioned at the Bonhams Goodwood Festival of Speed Sale on July 13, 2018.
It’s a homecoming of sorts, for Jimmy Clark drove '2 VEV' in the RAC Tourist Trophy races at Goodwood in both 1961 and 1962. He finished second behind the sister car '1 VEV', driven by Roy Salvadori, in the 1961 race but crashed out in 1962 in collision with John Surtees's Ferrari 250 GTO!
While ‘2 VEV’ had a long and storied racing history, including several crashes, it has been rebuilt to original specs and has resided in the same family for 46 years.
There is speculation that it could become the most valuable Aston Martin ever to be sold at auction, surpassing the previous record of US$22.55-million for the first DBR1, sold at RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction in 2017.
