Headlam's head-turner

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Great riches do not always beget great taste, but the Headlam brothers of Whitby, North Yorkshire, were blessed with both wealth and an acute sensitivity for coachwork design. Heir to the prosperous Headlam & Sons Steamship Company, Leonard Headlam devoted his free time to the pursuit of speed and commissioned radical but unquestionably beautiful fastback bodies for a pair of Alfa Romeos he raced at Brooklands, on one occasion beating Benjafield’s Bentley. Sadly, Leonard was only 26 when he lost traction on a snowy road and slid his Alfa Romeo into a ditch, overturning the car and killing himself.

The motoring passion, however, was just as strong in his younger brother William, and it was he who commissioned the exemplary Aston Martin 1½-litre International coupé that survives in all its glory today. With the cabin set as far back as could be conceived, the exaggerated length of the bonnet implies a powerful straight-six or straight-eight where in fact there is only Aston’s 1500cc four, while the low-slung chassis and swooping wings afford an elegance quite possibly unequalled by any other prewar Aston.

Although designed with touring as the primary objective, Headlam entered the car in the 1936 Spa 24-hour race and another owner campaigned it in an AMOC event in 1950, but following restoration in 1967 it has enjoyed a relatively cosseted life. David Burgess-Wise reveals the full history of Headlam’s head-turner in the May issue of The Automobile, available now.

Words by Zack Stiling. Photographs by Mick Walsh.

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