While the DB5 saloon might be the ultimate Gentleman’s Express, there was one man who was able to find a flaw with the iconic model—David Brown himself. An avid sportsman, Brown grew frustrated with his company car after realizing that he could not fit his polo gear in the luggage compartment. Worse still, his hunting dog was chewing the plush leather seats. As the story is told, Brown entered a board meeting at which some of his engineers were in attendance, plunked his hunting dog down on the table, and said, “Build me something for him to sit in.”
The result, a shooting brake built on the DB5 chassis, was so handsome that several customers requested their own. At the time, the factory was too busy building the regular DB5, so Brown asked Harold Radford’s new coachbuilding business to assist with the demand. Known today as the Radford Shooting Brakes, just twelve DB5 examples were ever built, only four of which were fitted with left-hand drive for export.
Story by RM Sotheby’s
