Building on Aston Martin's established road car and sports racer template, the chassis of the DBR4 was a conventional spaceframe structure, skinned with aluminium bodywork.

Beneath the skin the DBR4's basic design was closely related to the DB3S sports car of 1956, but with its ancillary components more tightly packaged to enclose them in the smaller, single-seater body.

As a result of this, although the DBR4's bodywork appeared svelte and streamlined, the effect was ruined by the decision to mount a large air intake on the side of the bonnet, and to install a relatively tall, near-vertical windscreen.

While this arrangement had been state-of-the-art in the early years of the 1950s, by the time that the DBR4 made its first public appearance most racing car manufacturers were moving to all-round independent suspension, offering better handling, traction and road-holding than the older system employed at the rear of the Aston.

This value is still higher than that provided by the Coventry Climax FPF straight-4, used by contemporary manufacturers such as Lotus and Cooper, but the Aston Martin engine weighed appreciably more.

The DBR5 was smaller and lighter, and engine modifications meant that the power output was finally close to the figure originally claimed by the Aston Martin workshop.

The Aston Martin DBR4/250 was unveiled to the public in April 1959, and made its competition debut on 2 May in the non-Championship BRDC International Trophy race at Silverstone.

Salvadori immediately began to show some promise in the car, posting third fastest time in qualifying, beaten only by fellow Britons Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks, driving a BRP BRM P25 and works Ferrari 246 Dino respectively.

In the race both Brooks and Moss retired with mechanical problems, but the Astons performed faultlessly for the majority of the distance, before Shelby's oil pump failed two laps from the finish.