Lagonda History

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Lagonda History


 

Lagonda

 1913 - 1948 (merger Aston Martin)
Country:
UK
Few famous marques had been through such chequered careers as Aston Martin and Lagonda. Yet, when the two merged in 1948 under the benevolent banner of the David Brown Corporation, it seemed their future was assured. David Brown was the ideal patron. The ex-racing driver was then the millionaire boss of a large engineering group as well as being an enthusiast extraordinaire. Brown devoted twenty-five years of his life, plus a large slice of his fortune in his hobby. He employed top designers, poured money into motor sport and personally tested many of the prototypes.

On one memorable occasion he lapped Silverstone in a DB3 only one second outside the time recorded by his crack professionals - and this at a time when he was arguably well past his prime, being in his late fifties, with 10,000 employees and fourteen separate manufacturing businesses to think of. Dearly though he loved his twin car firms, they gobbled up money faster than he could make it. In its last year under David Brown management, Aston Martin Lagonda lost $3 million. In 1972 his bankers helped make the heart-rending decision to sell the firm to Company Development Ltd., chaired by William Willson.

Predictably, Mr. Willson trimmed overheads, sold surplus real estate and gave the sales department curry. The outlook began to appear so rosy that twelve months later Mr. Willson announced the company was on the road to profit recovery, for the first time in 20 years. He said that a $500,000 investment in retooling had boosted production from two or three cars weekly to seven with an occasional eighth.

Alas, the euphoria did not last. The oil crisis combined with Britain's massive industrial problems dealt a body blow. The company needed another benefactor, and for a time all seemed lost when then British Industry Minister, Mr Tony Benn, refused an $800,000 Government Loan which Aston Martin needed to avoid collapse. The firm did not deny their plight but angrily denounced the Tory MP who had disclosed it. Mr Willson accused him of releasing confidential information and damaging the firm's chance of raising a loan elsewhere.

Wilbur Gunn



Financial crises had dogged the two companies since an American named Wilbur Gunn left his home town of Springfield, Ohio, and set sail for Britain. Later, Springfield was to be the scene of Rolls-Royce's costly attempt to manufacture in the USA, but Gunn had nothing like prestige cars in his mind when he arrived in England. He wanted to cash in on the thriving motorcycle market. After building his first two-wheeler in a greenhouse, Gunn launched a successful motorcycle. His search for a suitable name took him back to a small river flowing through his home town. Correctly, the river was called Buck Creek, but the French settlers had given it the more attractive name of La Gonda.

Gunn's two-wheelers were selling well but he could see more dollar bills sticking out of the fledgling auto business. In 1904 he built a ten horsepower three-wheeler, then known as the Tri-car. The engineering was crude and the layout amateurish with the passenger sitting ahead of the driver, possibly acting both as a mudguard and human bumper. The Tri-car was, however, a considerable success. Fitted with small handle bar steering, the prototype lapped Brooklands at 84 km/h. Delighted, Gunn switched to an orthodox steering system and sold a sizeable number to the British postal service for use as their first motorised delivery vans. In 1908 Gunn gained his first Gold medal when the Tri-car won the London-Edinburgh Reliability Trial.

Wilbur Gunn
Wilbur Gunn, founder of Lagonda, who originally intended to manufacture motorcycles...

The very first Lagonda
  The very first Lagonda had tiller steering and lapped Broooklands at 90 km/h...

The 1935 LeMans winning Lagonda M45R
The 1935 LeMans winning Lagonda M45R, which covered 2998 km at an average speed of 125 km/h...

Lagonda 4.5 Litre V12
The Lagonda 4.5 Litre V12, designed after David Brown took over the firm, incorporated many of the ideas of W. O. Bentley...

Lagonda Rapide
The 4.5 litre M45 model was announced in 1933, and was to become the best known and most successful of the first generation sports Lagonda’s...

Lagonda Rapide
  With an engine by W.O. Bentley and body by Frank Feeley, many thought the LG45 "Rapide" resembled the infamous Mercedes SSK...

1936 Lagonda LG45 Drop Head Coupe
The 1936 Lagonda LG45 Drop Head Coupe was beautiful, and expensive...

1938 Lagonda LG45 Drop Head Coupe
The 1938 Lagonda LG45 Drop Head Coupe featured subtle styling changes, but still looked sensational...

Gunn's break into the big time came when he built a big six-cylinder tourer and personally drove it to victory in the 1910 Moscow-St Petersburg Reliability Trial. Highly impressed, Tsar Nicholas II imported a sizeable number of Lagondas until the war and revolution intervened. In 1911 Gunn introduced a radically innovative light car, using a riveted monocoque body, anti roll bars on the suspension and a fly-off handbrake. Later he abandoned the monocoque principle, mainly because of cost, but his imaginative design ideas continued to flow.

By 1925 Arthur Davidson had taken over the designing task. He embarked on a series of models which quickly earned the company its reputation as a sporting marque. His two-litre OHV design almost won the 1928 Le Mans 24 hour event, and from that time onwards the company specialised in fairly large, heavy, and powerful cars. The three-litre, introduced in 1928, was a formidable machine, as tough as nails and immaculately built. Many clocked astronomical distances without major overhaul and their standard of quietness was eclipsed only by RR. In 1932 Lagonda introduced the first British model with a Cotal electric gearbox. It had six forward speeds and was later replaced by an eight speed version, but cost rather than complexity brought production to a premature end.

Though they had become a recognized contender in the luxury field, Lagonda maintained a brisk interest in motor sport. They entered the 1934 RAC Tourist Trophy, taking 2nd and 3rd places in the unlimited classes with a brace of 4.5 litre tourers, averaging 124km/h. In the following year, they entered a similar car at Le Mans - and won. Their main rival was a Duesenberg, as W.O. Bentley was in financial trouble and did not enter. Hard-pressed by a pair of Lagondas, the big Duesenberg pulled out in the 38th lap, allowing a Lagonda to cruise to victory with an average speed of 125km/h for 24 hours.

It was, however, a pyrrhic victory as rival Bentley was in the process of being absorbed by Rolls-Royce and Lagonda nearly went the same way as both were in dire straits. Fortunately, wealthy businessman Alan Good saved Lagonda and produced a master stroke. He appointed W.O. Bentley as chief designer - an appointment said to cause consternation in the inner sanctums of RR where both Bentley and Lagonda marques were considered major rivals.

The W.O. Bentley Inspired Lagonda



The first Bentley-inspired Lagonda was an amazing machine. Introduced in 1937, its massive chassis was host to a variety of advanced ideas, including sophisticated independent front suspension. The V12 provided an unsurpassed degree of top gear flexibility and - some say - powered the first production closed car to top a genuine 160km/h. In fact, when tested at Brooklands, the big car crammed 163km/h into a single hour, including time to change a tyre. Unfortunately, World War 2 stopped production before the V12 was fully sorted, and only a few months after a pair had finished 3rd and 4th at Le Mans.

Post war production commenced with Lagonda only a shadow of its former self. W.O. Bentley had designed a new 2.6 litre model but serious production could not commence until David Brown acquired the firm and put in the necessary money. This brilliant, but unorthodox, car had a true cruciform chassis, independent rear suspension and twin overhead cam engine. A three-litre version appeared in 1951 and stayed in production until 1958 when the company announced that no more Lagondas would be built until the forthcoming Rapide had been fully developed.

The next Rapide appeared in 1961, powered by a DB4 four-litre engine. The platform chassis embraced four wheel independent suspension, servo assisted disc brakes and a De Dion rear axle. The elegant aluminium body was built by Superleggera. But despite a top speed of 200 km/h it was more an Aston Martin than a Lagonda. No tears were shed when production quietly ceased in 1963. The first prototype of the car later known as Aston Martin was driven for the first time in 1913. Its creators, Robert Bamford and Lionel Martin, saw their offspring as a competitor for Bugatti. But this it was not. The prototype had a dated 1908 Isotta-Fraschini chassis and a 1.4 litre Coventry Climax engine offering a modest top speed of 113km/h in favourable conditions.

The company virtually collapsed before production started, but was refinanced at the close of World War One by Count Zborowski, with Lionel Martin as manager. In the early twenties, the company enjoyed some impressive sporting victories, the most notable being at Aston Clinton hill climb. Capitalising on this success they gave the marque a new name - Aston Martin. During the next five years a few experimental overhead cam cars were successfully raced around Europe. In May 1922 one established a group of world records at Brooklands with a I6V2 hour run, averaging 122.6km/h. Some of these records still stood fifty years later. Despite its racing successes, largely with the DOHC engine, Aston Martin concentrated on production cars powered by side valve engines noted more for durability than urgency. Not surprisingly the sales scene became increasingly depressing.

In 1926 a rescue operation was headed by A.C. Bertelli, backed by an able engineer, W.S. Renwick. The two men designed a completely new 1.5 litre car, powered by an overhead cam engine. They followed this with the International, a sports car which made history as being one of the few with dry sump lubrication. But the car's real achievement was in the handling department. It was a superb road car which quickly established the ailing company with a new and exciting image. At long last they could talk about rivalling Bugatti.

Bertelli also financed a vigorous competition program and was duly rewarded, in 1932, when he personally (with L.P. Driscoll) won the Biennial Cup at Le Mans. The company won again the following year, establishing a 1.5 litre record that was not broken until 1950. Money problems in 1933 saw a partial change of ownership. R.G. Sutherland took over the managing directorship and Bertelli became engineering manager. The new partnership was an instant success as the pair introduced the Mark II, from which the famous Ulster model was developed.

The Ulster was a heavy machine, hitting the scales at 940kg, which, by lV2litre standards, was on the brutal side. But the car was as indestructible as a battleship and only twice as fast. The Ulster gave rise to the celebrated comment, said to have been made by an owner: "I could keep up with anything on the track, if only I could climb out of the dents the Aston makes while waiting at the start line."

Fair or not, this comment came to epitomise the Astons of the 1930's. Their ruggedness became as indestructible as the legend itself and the marque ceased to be the ambition of wealthy young bloods. To restore their sporting image, the management decided to increase the engine capacity to two litres, at the same time introducing closed and open versions. Known as the 15/98, the new range was introduced in 1936. A special speed model followed, with hollow crankshaft and an output of more than 75kW at 5000rpm. Even so, the car failed to recapture the sporty magic of the early lightweights and it was deemed best to move into the luxury field.

In 1939 a new prototype with a Cotal electric gearbox and independent front suspension was announced. It was never produced because of the war. In 1945 Aston Martin joined the rush to serve a car-hungry public. Like Lagonda they were soon in financial difficulties and saved only by the timely intervention of David Brown. He commissioned a new model and, in 1948, the two-litre 2/4 drophead coupe appeared. One was entered in the Spa 24 hour sports car race, winning outright. David Brown could smell British racing green!

The Aston - Lagonda Merger



Now merged with Lagonda, Aston started to rationalise. Both cars were to use Lagonda's 2.6 litre engine, but rather surprisingly David Brown seemed more interested in preserving the Aston marque rather than Lagonda. The Aston Martin DB was introduced and, in its first year, won the Le Mans Index of Performance and also the three-litre class. In August 1954 a three-litre engine was introduced for both marques. A year later the DB Mark III arrived with front wheel disc brakes and optional overdrive.

The culmination of David Brown's motor sport career was the phenomenal success enjoyed by the DBR1/300 racing model which, in 1959, won the World Sports Car Championship. Between 1956 and 1959 only four of these cars were built, but they won six world championship races, set five lap records and blew up only one engine! Aston Martin had finally broken the jinx. Riding the top of a new wave, they introduced the all new DB4 closed car at the 1958 London motor show, with such innovations as four wheel disc brakes. Despite the jaunty confidence, the company was still losing money. In a bid to halt the drain, Brown moved Lagonda and Aston to Newport Pagnell, the home of the Tickford Body building firm he had acquired because of the reluctance of other body builders to supply him.

The company also withdrew from racing - but not before notching up an outright win at Monza. Further changes included the introduction of the five speed 4litre DBS and the setting up of a US subsidiary to take advantage of the growing demand over there. One of its first jobs was to handle the phenomenal publicity generated by the morbidly appointed James Bond car. 1965 saw the introduction of the DB6, a full four seater GT saloon capable of 241km/h. The DBS, introduced in late 1967 broke new ground. The first car completely styled within the group, it met all existing safety legislation. Engineering features included a De Dion rear axle and inboard disc brakes. By this time the company was producing a variety of models - DBS, DB5 and the Volante, the latter being the first European convertible with a power operated soft top as standard.

Though production of all models once reached sixteen per week, the figure gradually fell to two a week by the time the group changed hands in 1973. One interesting plan, announced late in 1971, when the winds of financial fall-out scattered around the world, was a joint venture with BRM. The plan was for BRM and Aston to build and sell a mid-engined V12 sports coupe to compete against Jaguar. It would have been one of the fastest production cars in the world, with a genuine capability of 266km/h and a production rate of 3000 units a year. However, the fuel crisis put paid to this idea, as it did to several other plans the company had. There seemed little to do but sell, under pressure from David Brown's bankers. The rest of the story can be found on our Aston Martin Heritage page.

Also See: Lagonda Car Reviews | Lost Marques - Lagonda | Aston Martin Heritage
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