Stars and their cars - King Charles III’s Aston Martin DB6 Volante

The Coronation of King Charles III on the 6^th May has caused some of us to muse about his many and various motor cars. Some associate the monarch with the Mineral Blue MGC GT with a heated rear window, wire wheels, an electric aerial and a car ‘phone. He acquired the MG in January 1968 as a Cambridge undergraduate, and it remains within the Royal Family.

But perhaps the King’s most famous vehicle is the metallic Seychelles Blue Aston Martin DB6 Mk II Volante, presented to him by Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh for his 21^st birthday on the 14^th November 1969. Aston Martin unveiled the DB6 at the 1965 London Motor Show in the Coupe and Volante drophead forms.

Compared with its DB5 predecessor, the DB6’s wheelbase was 3¾ inches longer, and the hardtop’s bodywork gained a more steeply raked windscreen, new tail lights, a higher roof line over the rear passenger compartment and a spoiler. Buyers had the choice of the standard or the 325 bhp Vantage engine with triple twin-choke Weber carburettors. It was also Aston Martin’s first car to leave their new factory at Newport Pagnell.

Visitors to Earls Court could marvel at the latest Aston Martins on Stand 107. The price of both the Coupe and the Volante was £4,998. 5d, which meant they cost over six times more than a Ford Cortina Mk. I. Newport Pagnell claimed the top speed was 150 mph. Autocar thought: “For experienced drivers who enjoy handling a car, appreciate a thoroughbred engine, and need to travel far and fast, the DB6 must be high on the short list”. Meanwhile, the brochure pointed out the “virile beauty” of the wire wheels.

By 1969 Aston Martin built two Volantes per week, compared with seven coupes and ten DBS. By then, the DB6 was the car of choice of Paul McCartney, Twiggy, Mick Jagger and, somewhat inevitably, Peter Sellers. The Mark II debuted on the 21^st August and featured wider tyres and flared wheel arches shortly before production ended in 1970. Graham Hill gave HRH driving lessons, so he might better appreciate its road manners.

Of course, the Royal DB6 left Newport Pagnell at a time when a gallon of four-star cost 6/2d. Over five decades later, Prince Charles told the BBC: “My old Aston Martin, which I’ve had for 51 years, runs on – can you believe this – surplus English white wine and whey from the cheese process”. In 2008, the Gloucestershire company Green Fuels helped convert the DB6 Volante to run on 105-octane E85 bioethanol converted from wine from a Wiltshire vineyard and whey from a nearby cheesemaker.

As Aston Martin once claimed, any DB6 is “the synthesis of all that’s best in British craftsmanship, engineering skill and sheer enthusiasm”. And, according to His Majesty, the Royal Volante “smells delicious as you’re driving along”.