Bob Drake Aston Martin

Story and photos by Allen R. Kuhn

In my duology of Aston Martin at venues other than Palm Springs, my viewfinder did not locate too many of them on my sojourns around Southern California back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. I saw my first Aston Martin in 1956 and only a few more in 1957 and 1958. Since 99.9% of my shots will be of the DB3S model I’ll just call them Astons. This chapter will concentrate on the myriad of other racecourses located in our beautiful Southern California. True, most of our courses, eight out of the thirteen I attended, were on runways or large parking lots. That’s what you can expect from mostly desert locations.

My first sighting, shooting with my folks’ Kodak Pony 135 camera loaded with Kodachrome, was of Bob Drake, the winner of the main event at Pomona on October 21, 1956. It wouldn’t be until some time in 1957 that I would graduate to my beloved Canon IVS2 35mm camera.

TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALLEN R. KUHN

On our trip down memory lane this week we will be gazing upon some of the beautiful Aston Martin “Chariots of Power” that I was able to capture through my viewfinder. All of those in this part were taken at Palm Springs between 1956 to 1958. I did not even discover one of them until a year ago. It was a photo taken at Pomona in early 1956 and was the first DB3S I ever shot. It was the winner of the main with Bob Drake driving. It will be featured in my Aston Martin Part 2 story.