Christopher Ward C70 DBR1/2 User guide

C70 DBR1/2 CHRONOMETER

ASTON MARTIN CENTENARY LIMITEd EdITION

O W N E R ’ S H A N D B O O K

Head Office

Christopher Ward (London) Limited,

1 Park Street, Maidenhead,

Berkshire SL6 1SL United Kingdom

+44 (0)1628 763040

custOmer services

UNITED KINGDOM: +44 (0)844 875 1515

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: 1.877.226.8224

[email protected]

Website

www.christopherward.co.uk

www.christopherward-usa.com

Your Christopher Ward watch has been

designed and engineered by highly talented

craftspeople to ensure not only accurate and

precise timekeeping but also to bring a real

pride of ownership that only luxury items of the

highest quality can ever hope to deliver.

You have made an investment, a good one,

and the aim of this handbook is to help you

make the most of that investment during what

I hope will be a lifetime of ownership.

Christopher Ward

TIME ON YOUR SIDE...

CONTENTS

THE ASTON MARTIN DBR1/2 4–7

THE DB YEARS 8–9

A PIECE OF HISTORY 10–11

C70 DBR1/2 CHRONOMETER

CENTENARY LIMITED EDITION 12–13

TECHNICAL INFORMATION 14–15

THE COSC CERTIFIED CHRONOMETER 16–17

HOW TO OPERATE YOUR C70 DBR1/2 20–33

THE CW360 WATCH CARE PROGRAMME 34

GENERAL INFORMATION 35

THE ASTON MARTIN DBR1/2

The Aston Martin DBR1/2 that won Le Mans

in 1959 is the most celebrated vehicle in

the British marque’s 100-year history.

The DBR1 sports racing cars were designed by

Ted Cutting, who had previously worked for

Allard, the British rm responsible for superb

cars with rounded, sweeping lines. He excelled

himself with the DBR1.

Building started in 1956 and only ve were ever

made, being given the designations DBR1/1,

DBR1/2 and so on. Fitted with a 3-litre engine,

of these ve, chassis number two, DBR1/2, was

to prove the king of the quintet. It was driven

to victory in the 1957 Spa Sports Car race by

Tony Brooks, and to top spots at both the 1958

and 1959 RAC Tourist Trophy at Goodwood by

Stirling Moss.

The second victory at the Sussex circuit was one

of Moss’s greatest triumphs and helped Aston

Martin win the World Sports Car Championship.

But the win at Le Mans in 1959, where Aston

Martin had come second in 1955 and 1956,

was the pinnacle of DBR1/2’s achievements.

On June 21–22 1959 it took three cars, six drivers

and more than 2,700 miles for Aston Martin

to defeat the works Ferraris and Porsches, its

nearest rivals, to claim its rst and only victory

in the Le Mans 24-hour race. The chequered

ag was waved as DBR1/2, bearing black

racing number 5s upon white circles, crossed

the line with Texan Carroll Shelby at the wheel.

Six miles behind it was DBR1/4, carrying racing

number 6 and helmed by French veteran

Maurice Trintignant.

When DBR1/4 crossed the line it secured a

marvellous 1–2 for David Brown, the charismatic

owner of Aston Martin, whose initials have

become ever associated with a series of

legendary British cars, the initials DBR standing

for David Brown Racing.

Watching from the pits were Shelby’s British

co-driver Roy Salvadori, Trintignant’s Belgian

partner Paul Frère, and the British pair Stirling

Moss and Jack Fairman, whose DBR1/3, racing

as number 4, had set a blistering pace in the

early section of the 24-hour race that proved

to be the ruin of the continental thoroughbreds

from Italy and Germany. By the end of this

classic endurance pursuit Salvadori and Shelby

had covered 2,701.654 miles (4346.961km) at

an average speed of 112.569mph (181.124kph).

A legend had been conrmed.

Earlier this year, Stirling Moss shared some of his

memories with AM, the Aston Martin Magazine.

“Le Mans was never a circuit I particularly liked

as the cars weren’t generally reliable enough in

my day, so you had to nurse them round there

rather than really go for it, which was my style.

[In 1959] they tted my car with a special more

powerful engine and [I was told] to go out and

drive very fast, which was music to my ears, to

see if we could tempt Ferrari into a high-speed

duel. I was driving with Jack Fairman and the

plan worked perfectly as Ferrari did exactly

what we hoped. They tried to chase us down

and burnt themselves out in doing so. Three

of their cars were forced to retire with engine

problems, which allowed the other two Aston

Martins to nish rst and second. The DBR1 was

a great car to drive…as it handled beautifully

– you could really throw it around, which is how

I wanted to drive. The brakes were great and

the car had lovely balance. It also looked very

classy and I always preferred to drive a British

car if I could.”

The success of the legendary DBR1s is all

the more remarkable because, compared

to their bitter rivals, the Ferraris, they were

underpowered and had a very unreliable

gearbox. It had a habit of either jamming or

jumping out of gear, which must have been a

disconcerting thought in the driver’s mind at

160mph on the Mulsanne straight at Le Mans.

In 1959 53 cars started the endurance classic,

including 11 works and privately-entered

Ferraris, which were generally accepted to

be better cars.

After securing the World Championship in 1959,

David Brown retired Aston Martin from racing.

Over the past 50-plus years, however, DBR1/2

has not been a motionless cocooned museum

piece. Owned by people that cared about it

and knew how to look after it, this iconic wire

wheeled gem has been raced regularly at

vintage meetings and scrupulously maintained.

“The DBR1 was a great car to drive…

as it handled beautifully – you

could really throw it around, which

is how I wanted to drive. The brakes

were great and the car had lovely

balance. It also looked very classy

and I always preferred to drive a

British car if I could.”

STIRLING MOSS

Top L–R: The opening stages

of the Le Mans 24-hour,

France, 20 June 1959.

Middle: Carroll Shelby

steers the Aston Martin

DBR1/2 number 5 car

during the race.

Bottom L–R: The chequered

flag is waved for Carroll

Shelby who crosses the

finish line driving DBR1/2.

Shelby and co-driver

Roy Salvadori averaged

122.569 miles per hour

including all stops in the

24-hour. Only 13 of 53

starters finished the race.

Roy Salvadori (left), David

Brown holding a bottle

of Champagne (centre)

and Stirling Moss (right) sit

above Carroll Shelby

in the winning DBR1/2 car.

Opposite page: British racing

driver Stirling Moss at the

wheel of the 3-litre Aston

Martin during the opening

stages of the Le Mans

24 hour race, June 20, 1959.

“At the end of the race David Brown got

in the car for the victory lap. It meant so

much to him; I guess he had wanted to

win Le Mans all of his life. When he knew

we were going to win, he’d dressed up in

all of his nery with a new sports coat and

everything. But after he got into the car

at the end, he sat in about an inch of oil!

I felt quite sorry for him, all dressed up

like that and covered in oil! But I guess

that under the circumstances he didn’t

mind too much...” CARROLL SHELBY

THE DB YEARS

Celebrating 100 years this year, Aston

Martin started life as Bamford & Martin, a

company incorporated on 15 June 1913.

Based at 12–16 Henniker Place, Chelsea, it was

a partnership between Robert Bamford and

Lionel Martin, who had met through an interest

in cycling. Having started working as a motor

repair business, they took on a dealership and

concentrated on modifying Singer production

cars to achieve improved performances.

The partnership was dissolved in 1920 when

Bamford left. Martin added “Aston” after

the Aston Hill climb near Aylesbury where he

competed with Singers and by the early 1920s

Aston Martin was a recognised designation for

the cars he developed. In 1926 the company

failed, Martin left and new investors revived it

under the name of Aston Martin Motors.

David Brown came on the scene in 1947 when

he saw an advertisement for “high-class motor

business” in The Times. His family’s Hudderseld

based engineering business made gears and

tractors and Aston Martin was bought by the

David Brown Corporation for £20,500 in 1947.

In 1948, the British luxury car company Lagonda

was added to the stable for £52,500 and Aston

Martin Lagonda was created. As he did not

own the company personally, during the 25

years or so he ran the business, Brown’s wish to

spend money on the cars often was thwarted

by the nance department in Yorkshire.

Born in 1904, Brown was physically a small man

with something of a Napoleon complex.

He was an adventurous soul who owned

racehorses, held a pilot’s licence, played polo

and raced cars and motorcycles. A conrmed

ladies’ man, he was married three times, the

last wife being 48 years his junior. Knighted in

1968, he died in tax exile in Monaco in 1993

aged 89.

After Brown bought Aston Martin he insisted

that his initials should prex the model

designation of the cars. Although in 1931 an

Aston Martin was the rst British car to complete

the Le Mans 24-hour race, the DB years, which

lasted until the mid-1970s when the struggling

business was sold, are recognised as the nest

period for the marque. Ironically, even when

he owned the company, Brown used a Jaguar

XJ Series 1 as his own car.

Above: David Brown with Queen Elizabeth ll

during her visit to the Aston Martin Lagonda factory

in Buckinghamshire, 1966.

Left: David Brown (left) with Carroll Shelby (right)

after their historic 1959 Le Mans win.

A few years ago historian Christopher Bennett

acquired from DBR1/2’s previous long-term

owner some fragile aluminium panel sections

that had been removed from the car during

restoration activities, one of these panels being

a slender bulkhead section located behind

the driver’s head, this section a distinctive

feature of the curvaceous lines of the Aston.

Bennett’s London-based business, TMB ArtMetal,

scrupulously salvages original metals from very

rare historic cars and aircraft and recycles

it into unique collectible artefacts, such as

cufinks made from the remnants of a famous

1940 Battle of Britain Hurricane ghter. When

he approached Christopher Ward Watches

with an idea for a collaboration, the motor

racing fanatics at CW’s Maidenhead HQ took

little persuading.

“As our rst-ever watch, the C3 Malvern, was

inspired by the dial from a classic Aston Martin,

we were fascinated by Chris’s proposition,” says

CW co-founder Mike France. “We were looking

to create a special limited-edition to mark the

Aston Martin centenary this year and what

could be better than an actual fragment of the

marque’s most famous and successful racer?”

A PIECE OF HISTORY

Bennett explains: “During a meticulous

restoration in the early 1990s by renowned

engineer Tim Samways a small number of

damaged or age-distressed original body panel

sections were removed from DBR1/2, and it is

from one of these very panels that the pieces in

the Christopher Ward chronometer are derived.

These venerable old panels display the correct

and expected age patina appropriate to

metal from the late 1950s, with a hard working

life behind them.”

Johannes Jahnke, a committed car enthusiast

himself, carefully prepared the historic metal

to allow us to incorporate a medallion into

the back-plate of each of the 100 pieces of

the special limited edition. The design of the

medallion, with another touch of authenticity,

includes a perfect facsimile of the cars number

5 and it is has been covered by a sapphire

crystal for posterity.

Below: The aluminium strip from the

winning car which has been used for

the new C70 DBR1/2 Limited Edition

watch was located at the rear of the

car's cockpit, just behind the head of

the driver. The car, minus this piece,

was recently sold to a private buyer

for a reported £20 million.

1111

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