After completing and apprenticeship, with Rolls Royce, Robin Hamilton went into business with David Jack under the Robin Hamilton Motors banner as Aston Martin specialists. In 1974 Robin became only the second person to take to the tracks with a V8 powered production Aston Martin when he started racing his 1969 Aston Martin DBS V8 chassis number #DBSV8/10038/RC.

By 1977 the car had become so modified with little of the original 1969 chassis remaining Robin renumbered it RHAM/001 (Robin Hamilton Aston Martin) and had gathered sufficient funds to enter the Silverstone 6 hour race, where with fellow club racer David Preece the car qualified 15th but failed to complete sufficient laps to be classified after heat soak from the inboard rear brakes caused the differential oil seal to fail. Once the seal was replaced Hamilton and Preece continued at reduced pace to the finish.

A month later Robin took the his Aston Martin to Le Mans and qualified slowest in the GTP class but thanks to irregularities with another competitor Hamilton was informed he would be allowed to start 5 hours before the start of the race. Hamilton and Preece were joined by long time racer Mike Salmon in a run that included replacing cracked front brake pads with the teams only spares so that the car again had to run at reduced speed this time for 17 hours.

The gear lever came off in Mikes hands so he threw it out the window. The item was recovered by a marshal who apparently ran back to the pits with it so that it could be refitted. Other than that regular stops were required to patch up and top up the differential oil tank. The car, christened Muncher during the race for it’s capacity to destroy brakes was classified 17th overall 600 miles behind the wining Porsche 936/77 I looked at last Sunday.

Lack of funds meant that Robin had to sit out international events in 1978 but he kept developing the car lowering the roof, loosing weight and fitting two turbo chargers to raise the horsepower from 520hp to 650hp which doubled the fuel consumption to 2.5mpg, until fuel injection brought the figure up to 4 mpg !

In 1979 Robin returned to the Silverstone 6 hours with David and none other than 1975 Le Mans winner Derek Bell to drive the much improved car as seen above. Lapping 5 seconds faster than on it’s first appearance in 1977 the Aston Martin qualified 11th and came home 13th with a list of problems that included brake fade, a blown tyre and a ‘small’ engine fire.

The car was prepared for the Le Mans 24 hours where it was lapping 7 seconds faster than in 1977 but only qualified for 55th place on the grid. The car lasted 21 laps before a holed piston melted broke a connecting rod causing retirement.

In 1980 Robins Aston Martin V8 was wheeled out at the Silverstone 6 hours for a third time sharing the car with Derek Bell again the car was now three seconds slower than in 1980 and qualified 24th. The Aston retired from the race after 60 odd miles with rear hub failure.

At the end of 1980 Muncher the Aston Martin claimed a World Land Speed Record, when Robin Hamilton towing a Astra 14 caravan with his car that had clocked over well 180 mph at Le Mans, achieved a two way average time of 124.91 mph raising the caravan towing record from 108 mph at Elvington Airfield on the 14th of October 1980.

Thanks for joining me on this “Muncher” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !