In 2025, we celebrate 60 years since Aston Martin launched what was then its highly anticipated new model, the DB6 – the latest in a long line hugely popular ‘DB’ models of the era.
The DB6 can trace its heritage back several years before its launch, though – right back to the DB4, in fact. The DB4 had been first shown in 1958 and it developed through no less than five different ‘series’, gradually evolving into a refined grand touring car. At the last moment the company decided to rename its sixth iteration of the DB4 by giving it a fresh title: DB5. Two of these early DB5’s were loaned to a certain fictional spy of the silver screen and the rest, they say, is history. The DB5 was propelled into global fame which persists even today, but what the paying customers of the day actually wanted 60 years ago was more space, greater luxury, and improved high-speed handling.
Some special DB4 GT race cars, known as the Project Cars, raced at Le Mans in 1962 and 1963. The Aston Martin engineering team experimented with streamlined shapes and the use of a ‘Kamm Tail’, a cut off rear section that helped ‘push’ the car down onto the track. This race-derived styling feature made its way onto the DB6 production models, giving the model its distinctive looks which, the informed viewer, might see gently echoed in today’s Vanquish.
The DB6 was well-received from the start: appealing to existing customers and attracting many new ones, including some well-known celebrities of the day. With more than 1,750 examples built, the DB6 would remain our best-seller until the arrival of the DB7 in the mid-1990s.
With this important anniversary firmly in my mind I was delighted to meet Cliff Bolton, the owner of a beautiful DB6, during a visit to Brooklands Museum earlier this year. As Cliff showed me around the 1967 DB6 'saloon' (the correct description for the coupe version) we discussed what history he had for the car, and it transpired that he had never seen the original factory build sheet. I obtained a copy of this document, effectively the birth certificate for the car. The 1967 delivery address of the first owner caught my eye.
On the 10th March 1967 chassis number 3037/R was registered to a Mr G. J. Reeve at the Old Rectory on the edge of the Hartwell House estate. The rectory had, of course, been the residence for the vicar at the church which served the house but, by the 1960s, it was a private dwelling and home to Mr Reeve.
A brand new DB6 was a very expensive car in 1967, so I started to wonder who Mr Reeve might have been and what he did for a living. To get to the bottom of the mystery I asked genealogical consultant Martin Saul to take a look. Martin discovered that the person in question was a man called Geoffrey Reeve, and we were pleasantly surprised to discover that Geoffrey was in fact a film director, well-known for working on several movies with British actor Sir Michael Caine.
We will probably never know what adventures Geoffrey had in his DB6, but factory service records show that within six months he had clocked up more than 11,000 miles, as it came and went from its Buckinghamshire home. Today the Old Rectory is part of the Hartwell House estate, which operates as luxury hotel and spa, and the custodians of the property very generously granted us the opportunity to bring DB6 3037/R back ‘home’ again, possibly for the first time in many decades.
On the day of the car and house reunion, the sun shone and we all marveled at the beautiful gardens that surrounded these two icons of metal and bricks. Our imaginations ran wild as we noted the gravel driveway, which sweeps around the front and rear of the house. The property’s substantial garage and set of stable-type barns may well have once housed this magnificent car, and how distinguished a scene it must have made at the tail end of the swinging sixties.
Cliff has owned 3037/R for 47 years, painstakingly restoring the car himself over a 12-year period. When new the car was painted in a Dark Olive green, but with fully stripped bodyshell Cliff made the decision to change the colour to another period correct hue, Sierra Blue. Cliff has driven the car many thousands of miles and I think it’s safe to say that he intends to continue doing so for many years to come. Happy anniversary DB6.
Written by Aston Martin Lagonda Company Historian, Steve Waddingham.