Nick Watts - Aston Martin Victorious

This painting (a numbered print actually) hangs above the fireplace at home. It's a fine painting, particularly in artifical light, but it was basically an impulse buy at the Retromobile exhibition in Paris in 1995.

I don't much like Aston Martins, I have no connection with the 1959 Le Mans 24 hour race, and I don't even like many of Nick Watts' paintings!

This one attracted me because:

• It was quite cheap
• It's signed by Watts and the two drivers of Aston Martin No 5 - Carroll Shelby and Roy Salvadori. The fact they both survived the "blood sport" era of motor racing is a minor miracle.
• It's a dramatic 'heroic' sort of painting that appeals to the romantic in us all
• It doesn't make the le Mans 24 hour race look remotely like fun - instead it's portrayed as a grim ordeal, which it is.

The car is an Aston Martin DB 3 sports racer from a long long ago when Astons were small and agile and pretty.

David Brown (DB), the owner of Aston Martin, stood a fraction over five feet tall.

Let's hope that solitary Le Mans victory made him feel high for a while.