Aston Martin was formed in 1913 by Robert Bamford and Lionel Martin. The two made vehicles for racing events and were inspired to make their own cars through Martin's interest in racing around Buckinghamshire's Aston Clinton hills in England. Over the rest of the decade the two worked on their cars and in 1921 the Aston Martin company entered a competitive race for the first time.
Prior to World War II Aston Martin did not make many cars for public use. The company was devoted primarily to racing and the group entered various racing cars for endurance races like the Le Mans 24 Hours race.
In 1947 the company was bought by David Brown. While the company continued to make cars for racing purposes Brown introduced new cars that would be available to the public in the DB line. The line wouldn't truly get into popularity until 1963 when the DB5 was introduced.
In the 1960s Aston Martin's popularity took off thanks to Ian Fleming's James Bond films. Fleming gave his secret agent character an Aston Martin car in many of his books.
Aston Martin was majority owned by the Ford motor car company for a period of time in 1987 and the Virage line of cars was introduced around this time. The company would also return to racing in 2005 under the Aston Martin Racing line.
Today the company continues to build Aston Martin cars bay hand in new state of the art facilities.