Early History

 

The car was registered on 1^st January 1968 and the first owner was Frederick Nodder of Dore.

Frederick was a Quantity Surveyor by profession and a keen car enthusiast, having owned a few Aston’s and E-Types previously. He bought the car from Hexagon Motors in London and kept it for three years, selling it in 1971. He drove the car well and often used it to travel to a second house he owned in Scarborough. It was reputed that he would constantly try to improve on his previous best time in arriving and used the potential of the car to the full. To help himself in this and general driving, he specified that two Halda navigational instruments were fitted to the car.

Halda Speed-Pilot

Both Speed-Pilot mkV and Twinmaster were fitted in an alternative centre console that also included the radio. These are driven via gearboxes and cables from the original car speedometer drive and still remain in the car.

Frederick sold the car in the summer of 1971 to Sheffield dealer B.J. Williams, showing a recorded mileage of 17,489.

On the 3^rd June 1971 a surprise greeted me as I turned the corner and walked up the drive. There to one side of our house on Taptonville Road, stood one of the most beautiful of cars that has ever been made. The silver bodywork, gracious curves and chrome fittings contrasting sharply against the smoke-stained millstone blockwork of our early Victorian house. I could not believe my eyes.  Surely somebody had arrived by mistake or it must be an academic visiting my father. I gazed through the side-window, straining to see the rev-counter and speedometer showing a maximum of 180mph. What a dashboard, what a body shape and what a car.

Dad and DB6 - 1971

Dad had indeed bought the car.

He had been walking past B.J. Williams & Son Ltd on Abbeydale Road, when the silver DB6 caught his eye. B.J. Williams were long established automobile engineers who dealt in sports and quality motorcars.

 Whatever possessed him to enter that showroom I will never know, but I will always be eternally grateful. Dad was one of the most reserved of people you could ever meet and for him to be interested in such a car was so out of character. I can only assume it was love at first sight, because a deal was done and he came home with the car. And he did a great deal, I guess this was the time of the oil crisis and nobody wanted these petrol guzzling monsters. He even got them to take his 1967 dull grey Vauxhall Cresta as a part-exchange and for this they gave him a £550 allowance.

B.J. Williams invoice

So this was how PUW6F arrived at our house, the start of a very long journey.

Patrick north of the border - 1972

This journey however got off to a somewhat shaky start, as Dad decided he did not like the car and took it back after three days. The proprietor of B.J. Williams managed to persuade him that he had not given himself enough time to get used to the car, as after all this was a true thoroughbred  machine. Dad accepted his argument and once again the DB6 returned home. It was not a marriage made in heaven however and Dad and the car never really gelled.

The simple truth is Dad loved the car, but did not like driving it.

He liked the lines, build quality and handling, but did not like the way a tall-geared high performance engine wanted to be driven. He was used to and liked the easy performance available from a relatively large lowly-tuned six cylinder engine. Don’t forget the 3.3l Vauxhall Cresta had a three-speed manual column change and you did not need to change gear very often at all. He used to have a test route coming up Rivelin Valley road, that consisted of taking the last corner of the derestricted zone at a steady 30mph in top, before flooring it and seeing what speed could be obtained by the time he reached the garden centre just before the start of the 30mph city limit. In this the Cresta was faster at 72mph, but it was not at all a fair test. The DB was much higher geared and yet he still insisted in doing the test in top (5^th gear). This coupled with the lack of low-down grunt from a high performance DOHC engine, meant the poor old Aston bogged down and got nowhere fast. A few years later I showed him what could be done by taking the same bend in 3^rd gear, albeit at 30mph. The DB picked up her skirt and flew, 100mph being exceeded in seconds and the 30mph sign coming up at an alarming rate.

Also in 1971 Dad bought a Triumph Herald 1200. This was a great little car and I was allowed to use it on many occasions. Luckily for me he did not realise just how hairy the handling was on the limit.

Triumph Herald 12/50

Dad used the Herald on a daily basis and the time the DB spent in the garage grew longer. Another thing he did not like about driving the Aston was the fly-off handbrake. Sheffield is a city built in the hills and with the DB6 handbrake operating through auxiliary pads on the rear discs, it is not the most effective combination.

Dad however always wanted things to be perfect, the DB6 being no exception. With this in mind he contacted Aston Martin Lagonda Limited and in December 1971 took the car to the Newport Pagnell factory for a Road Test and Report. 

Aston Martin Lagonda Road Test appointment

Following the outcome of this Test Report he decided to let Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd carry out all the work they deemed necessary to put the car back in top-notch condition. Bearing in mind the car was only just over three years old and with barely 18,000 miles on the clock, in some ways this was quite extravagant. But that’s how Dad was, he wanted it right.

Road Test Report

Dad continued to use the DB on longer runs, with regular trips to Scotland and his parents in Berkshire. He felt this type of driving suited the car, as it could be left in top gear on the motorway for mile after mile. This of course also suited his driving style but was undoubtedly very good for the car. Time passed and Dad talked frequently about selling the car, but never got round to doing anything about it. However in late 1976 that was about to change and one evening he showed me an advert he had written out ready to place in the Sunday Times. He asked me to look over what he had written, to make sure that nothing had been missed and that it was completely truthful. Dad was a stickler that way.

It all looked ok, but although he had mentioned doing it many times it still came as a shock when he actually set the wheels in motion. At work during the following week, that shock spread to fear. Fear that he was going to let such a beauty go and by the end of the week I was bursting to tell him that I would buy it. I did not know how to approach this however, quite simply I did not feel that I could ever convince him that I should buy the car. As in all thing’s, Mum was my great ally and I thought the only chance was to get her on board with the idea. I had raced motorcycles for the previous three seasons and as this was something my parents actively disliked, they tried to discourage it at every opportunity. Perhaps this was a way in, in truth it was the only thing I could think of at the time. This was made easier in that I had just sold both my racing bikes, the Yamaha TR3 going in October of that year. I had previously sold my Velocette racer to a Canadian earlier in the year, so was enjoying a healthy bank balance. 

Eric and Dave with Velocette and Yamaha race bikes - 1975

Mum did indeed manage to convince Dad to sell me the car before the advert was placed, the proviso was of course, that I stopped racing. At the time this did not seem too hard for me to do, as I had neither the bikes, nor the will to continue after a very sad season in which I lost a lot of good friends. 1976 had also seen the hottest and driest summer for many years and the air-cooled Yamaha TR3 was outclassed in all but a few early races.

Dad and I agreed a purchase price of £1800, exactly the same amount as he had listed in his draft advertisement. This left me £400 short, but he agreed that I could pay him over a few months. There was some method in this on his part, he could be sure that I could never afford to go racing and repay my debt.

The car under Dad's ownership had been returned to 'as new'condition by Aston Martin Lagonda at Newport Pagnell, who also carried out all the servicing on his behalf. The car showed a recorded mileage of 21,259 when I bought it as the third owner in late 1976.