The Sport Wagon Enthusiast

Gentleman’s Sports Car: Aston DB5 Shooting Brake

If you’re the proper kind of gentleman, you enjoy bringing your two best friends—and a few guns—and getting out in the woods. Of course you’re going to drive your Aston too. Oh—and you’re going to own Aston Martin. David Brown was just this caliber of man. Needing extra room for his guns and dogs, Brown—with quintessential English taste—decided to have his company custom design a shooting break version of their gorgeous DB5 sports coupe. Although the factory was busy—Brown ran the show and his engineers built him a proper shooting brake.

Several customers were of like mind and sound judgment to Brown also desired a more practical DB5. So Brown commissioned Harold Radford and his coachbuilding firm to produce more examples. Despite their exceedingly high cost, Radford & Company custom manufactured another 12 DB5 brakes. These wagons had the same mechanics and output as the DB5 coupe—which meant a 4.0 liter 282 brake horsepower straight-six. With a top speed above 150 and only seven and a half seconds to hit sixty, the DB5 shooting brake was one of the fastest English cars of the mid-60s. One of the few downsides was rigidity though —as the brake lost structural integrity to deal with the extra weight.