Give me Salvadori’s Aston Martin on a summer’s day

Of all his exploits in this Aston Martin DB4GT Lightweight, Salvadori’s most notable result was a second-place finish at Goodwood at the 1960 RAC TT. In a race full of famous faces, he led the race until the final few laps when jeopardy struck and he picked up a puncture.

Stirling Moss went on to take the win at the wheel of a Rob Walker Ferrari 250 SWB with the podium completed by Salvadori’s team-mate Innes Ireland, also in a DB4GT. Future Formula 1 World Champion Graham Hill, meanwhile, came fourth in a Porsche 356 Carrera Abarth GTL.

The DB4GT Lightweight took its origins from Aston Martin’s road-going DB4, with work beginning on a sporting version in May 1958 under the eye of the racing division’s chief designer, Ted Cutting. Over the next two years, further refinements took place to produce the ‘Lightweight’ version, of which Salvadori’s car, ‘18 TVX’, was one of the first two examples.

As a ‘Master Project’ car, 18 TVX was built not at the Newport Pagnell factory but by the Experimental department in Feltham. Upon completion it was sold to John Ogier’s Essex Racing stable with full factory support, but its racing career was short-lived; 18 TVX’s final race in period came at the 1,000km of Paris in October 1960.

Two months after Salvadori’s Goodwood outing, the DB4GT Lightweight was replaced by the DB4GT Zagato, which Salvadori also raced at the following year’s RAC TT for the Essex Racing Team. He finished third, ahead of Jim Clark in the sister car, but was no match for repeat winner Moss and his Ferrari.

Having been put out to pasture, the car was sold in the early 1960s, after which it changed hands numerous times. It did continue to race, though at one time it required extensive repairs after an incident at Goodwood in 1978.

This story of this significant Aston Martin really picked up again at the end of last year when it was acquired by the Chilton family, who desired to return the car to competition at Goodwood once more.

Former F1 and IndyCar driver Max Chilton raced it in this year’s Stirling Moss Memorial Trophy alongside his brother Tom, and we caught up with him to learn more about the restoration process and what it meant to return 18 TVX to its prime.

The project was undertaken by the Jordan Racing Team, who worked over the winter to get the car fit to race in 2025 and continue to prepare the car now when it does compete. “I think some people make new versions of these, like with a donor car,” Chilton shared. “We decided, ‘No, let's race the actual car’, which has taken a lot of work.”

“It's not the fastest because we've built it as per the regulations and kept the original car, which is probably not as stiff as all of the other cars on the grid, but it looks, in my opinion, fantastic.”

Beautifully finished, it once again sports the original Sea Green colour scheme with Off-White Connolly leather interior, while other details communicate similar close considerations of the car’s heritage: “We put number ‘9’ on it because that's what Roy Salvadori raced in period. We've got the original steering wheel, original mirrors.”

“The engine in it is a 3.7-litre works engine. We got a new one made by RS Williams over the winter, to the correct standards, and it sounds fantastic, but it's heavily down on power compared to our competitors. I think in qualifying I was nearly 13mph down in the straights compared to the fastest, but I think it's a real crowd pleaser because it's just so elegant, it sounds fantastic and it really is a joy to drive so I can't complain.”

On 18 TVX’s return to the track the Chilton brothers finished 14^th, but it’s not their ambition to race the car regularly. Instead, their enjoyment derives from being able to share “an amazing bit of Goodwood history”.

“Roy Salvadori is a big part of Goodwood. You've obviously got the unique message that he's famous for saying: ‘Give me Goodwood on a summer’s day and you can forget the rest’. So, I think that's an iconic quote for everyone that's a GRRC member or a motorsport fan, and that's why we put Roy's number on the side, his name on the side.

“It's just an honour to be able to race this car with so much Goodwood history and bring it back to actually being on the grid. I'm honoured to be able to drive it and have the car in the family.”

On a personal level, driving cars such as 18 TVX has reignited Chilton’s spark for racing. The demands of top-flight motorsport paired with unsatisfactory results led to him “[falling] out of love with motorsport a little bit. So I then started a different career, and now this is my way into enjoying it again.”

Even before he personally started driving decades old cars in anger, Chilton experienced the thrill of historic racing as a spectator after his father-in-law “got [him] into” the Goodwood Revival. “I’d just stand on the outside of Woodcote or St. Mary's and watch people drifting and I thought ‘this is amazing’. I thought everyone was mad, actually, competing in these old cars, but then once you have a go you're like, ‘this is actually amazing fun’.

“I do it for the passion, so it's an honour to be back here. If I can be here every time, I will.” Such is the pull of historic racing, but when you’re at the wheel of something as elegant as 18 TVX, channelling the heroics of Roy Salvadori, it would be difficult not to catch the bug.

Tickets for the 2026 Goodwood Revival are now on sale. If you’re not already part of the GRRC, you can sign up to the Fellowship today and save ten per cent on your 2026 tickets and grandstand passes, as well as enjoying a whole host of other on-event perks.

Photography by Pete Summers, Toby Whales, Rob Cooper and Charlie Brenninkmeijer.