Retrospective: 1976-1991 Aston Martin Lagonda

The motoring press has been making a huge deal out of the upcoming Aston Martin Rapide, which is basically a DB9 with extra doors and a longer wheelbase.  I'll admit, it is a big deal - finally, there's an ultra-luxury sedan that's actually attractive.  (I'm looking at you, Panamera.  And Quattroporte.  And new XJ.  And Merc CLS.  And BMW 7-series.  and...)  But people act like this is strange foreign territory for the tiny British brand, when in fact it hasn't been that long since there was a four-door automobile wearing the illustrious Aston Martin badge.

While the Rapide is (and I think will be) considered a classical beauty, the previous Aston sedan was a bit more... divisive.  Polemic.  Opinion-splitting.  Some people might say ugly. But it's something you have to look a little deeper than the surface to really get a handle on.  Meet the original four-door Aston Martin, the Lagonda.

The Lagonda was a futuristic, techy flight of fancy that came about at an unusual time for Aston.  What Aston spend most of the 1970's doing was going bankrupt multiple times under multiple owners; the fact that they survived is amazing enough, but the fact that the Lagonda was their "rescue" product is even stranger.  Not exactly a blue chip investment, but sometimes you can't go anywhere without taking a risk.

The Lagonda was "styled" by designer William Towns, but I use "style" as a loose term here.  What he really did was make a car out of origami, all folds and creases like a tightly pleated suit.  Of course, it was dramatic - it had to be, it was an Aston. For instance, it's rumored that he worked tirelessly to get the angle of the bonnet as low as possible, actually restarting the design with different wheelbases multiple times to just to get the lowest possible hood under which to mount Aston's V8 motor.  The end result may not be elegant (at least in my eyes) but it sure is attention-getting.

The Lagonda was meant to be a statement both about Aston Martin and about the future.  So it's pretty hilarious when you consider that they sourced the "futuristic" electronic dashboard out to Lucas, who was definitely the electronics supplier of the future.  Anyway, for the late 70's it was very chic, although perhaps it was more... sheik.

In fact, you probably had to be an oil sheik to afford to keep gas in the thing.  Under the hood was Aston's 5.3L dual-overhead-cam V8, which sucked in dead dinos through four Weber DC42's.  Oh yes, four Webers on a quad-cam V8.  It delivered the goods, though, with 280bhp@5,000 rpm and a healthy 360 lb-ft of torque, making it one of the most powerful cars in the world at the time.  (Which is funny, because a modern Accord V6 makes more power.  But let's ignore that and stay in historical perspective here!) Each engine block was cast off-site, but machined and assembled by a single employee over the course of about a week(!).  Thus each engine bears a unique plaque with the builder's name etched into it - a nice personal connection.

note: engine pictured is actually from a '74 Aston Martin V8 Coupe, but they're identical.

The Lagonda fed it's burly V8 power through a Chrysler 3-speed automatic, which meant you were lucky to achieve double-digit fuel consumption.  But considering that the Lagonda had a price tag of £24,570 in 1977 - about £114,000 in today's money, which converted into US dollars is damn near a quarter of a million bucks - it was unlikely owners were concerned with something as pedestrian as fuel economy.  Performance was rapid by late '70's standards, with 0-100km/h coming up under 9 seconds (impressive considering the antique transmission and 4,000+lb kerb weight) and a top speed somewhere north of 140mph.

But the Lagonda's party trick wasn't it's engine - grand tourers of the time like the Porsche 928 were considerably faster - it was the interior appointments.  The Lagonda was one of the pioneers of the loved-and-hated digital dashboard that was so popular in the '80's.  The Lagonda's dash had three five-inch CRT displays monitoring various parameters, and touch-button electronic controls for basically everything.  Of course, being made by Lucas Electronics, none of it ever really worked right, but who cares!  Look at that dashboard, and weep for joy.

It probably won't come as a surprise that the Lagonda was never a really big seller; Toyota sells more Camrys in the US in a month than Aston sold total Lagondas over it's 13-year production span covering three series and various derivatives in a number of markets.  With only 645 Lagondas made, it's pretty clear you're not going to be bumping into one at a stop-light any time soon.  Despite the tiny production numbers (18 made in the first two years), Aston saw fit to continually update the Lagonda throughout it's lifetime to keep it fresh and somewhat up-to-date.  The car gained minor updates in 1982 for introduction to the US market (5mph bumpers, opening rear windows, etc).  The first real update was 1986 for the Series III cars, which received Weber-Marelli electronic fuel injection (driven by twin SU electronic fuel pumps) in place of the thirsty, finicky Weber carbs - powered jumped to 300bhp and 320lb/ft with the new induction setup.  The CRT dash was replaced with a more modern vacuum-fluorescent tube setup, in addition to new wheels and other styling tweaks.  The final update was in late '87 (Series IV) which kept the fuel-injected motor but received exterior styling tweaks.  The weird pop-up headlights hit the bin replaced by six fixed units, the edges were rounded off a bit, and it looked a tad-bit more modern.  Updated Series IV car pictured below.

Production of the Lagonda ended in late 1989 with the final Series IV cars being sold some time during 1990.  During it's lifetime the Lagonda went from being merely expensive, to ridiculously expensive - the last price listing I can find for the Lagonda indicates an MSRP of £76,254 in 1987 - again, correcting for inflation, that'd be £161,000.  And that's before VAT (Value-added Tax), which brought the price of the Lagonda up to £90,000 even in 1987 - or, just to make your stomach turn, about £190,000 today.  Perhaps that's why they only sold three digits worth in 13 years.

At any rate, despite the rarity and price, this didn't keep companies from modifying Lagondas to fit specific purposes.  Coachbuilder and mod-shop Tickford did a number of Lagonda conversions, including a stretched-wheelbase limousine with some absolutely massive rear glass, pictured below.  Roos engineering did a 5-door shooting brake (that's "wagon" to us Americans, eh) that looks like the most epic thing you could imagine.  The Aston factory in Newport Pagnell also did a short-wheelbase 2-door version called (ironically) the Rapide, which is almost too funny-looking to even post a picture of; use your imagination.  There were super-stretched 3-row limousines, too, but I can't say I know the origins of them.

In many ways, the new Rapide is a lot more conventional design than the Lagonda.  The Rapide simply looks like a longer DB9, which is sort of what people would expect from an Aston sedan; whereas the Lagonda represented the spirit of Aston Martin distilled into a luxo four-door package, not  necessarily in a stylistic sense.  I can't honestly say I think it's the prettiest thing ever made, but you have to admit, the Lagonda has some serious presence and charisma - it's a car that stands out in traffic almost as much as, say, a Unimog.  Will the Rapide stand out in traffic today?  Sure, but that's just because it'll be in a sea of beige Camrys and blue Escapes.  Everything's a matter of perspective.  Still, it's hard to imagine a car like the Lagonda happening today.  It was a brave lateral move for Aston, and Aston "purists" mostly thought it was the work of the devil, but it gave Newport Pagnell the capital it needed to keep it's factory running.  The parallel with the Cayenne/Panamera is hard to ignore here.  And in the end, if the Rapide can generate enough cash flow so that Aston can keep screwing together crazy shit like the V12 Vantage, then I'm 100% fine with it - even it's more of the same old Aston, rather than an alien UFO with a Tadek Marek V8 like the Lagonda was.

Top Gear's James May explains the whole Lagonda phenomenon better than I can; so have a look at this clip from '03 talking about the overall boldness of this car, it really puts it into perspective.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osrks1t-5a4

So, the question of the Lagonda's relative relevance is still up in the air.  As a financial instrument for keeping Aston afloat - well, they're still here, aren't they?  There wasn't really a replacement for the Lagonda (as no-one bought them) and it would be quite a stretch to say the Rapide is taking it's place.  What are your thoughts on this strangest of Aston creations?  Drop us a line in the comments box below.