Start with what the Aston Martin Atom is: a 4 door saloon with 2.0 L I4, built from 1939 to 1940, when streamlining and independent suspension were arriving together. What it meant takes a little longer. The shape is credited to Claude Hill.
How it came about
The Aston Martin Atom is a prototype automobile built by Aston Martin (AM). Construction of the car began in 1939 and was completed in 1940. The Atom is one of the first fully functional concept cars ever built. Aston Martin explored several new technologies with the Atom, and its chassis design was the basis for the platform used by AM's post-war models, beginning with the 1948 DB1 that evolved out of the Atom, well into the late 1950s.
The hardware
The engine is 2.0 L I4. Drive goes through a Semi-automatic Cotal preselector. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 102 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Lincoln Continental, the Volkswagen Beetle, the Mercury Mercury. Its Aston Martin stablemates include the Aston Martin Mark II and the Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3.
Owning one today
There is no federal ownership record for the Aston Martin Atom — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.