Lagonda
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| Product type | Automotive marque |
|---|---|
| Owner | Aston Martin |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Introduced | 1906 |
| Previous owners |
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| Website | www |
Lagonda is a British luxury car marque established in 1906, which has been owned by Aston Martin since 1947. The marque has had a non-contiguous presence in the luxury car market, being dormant for several times during its existence, most recently from 1995 to 2008 and 2010 to 2013.
Lagonda was founded as a company in 1906 in Staines, Surrey, by a Scottish-American, Wilbur Gunn (1859–1920), a former opera singer. He became a British national in 1891 and worked as a speed boat and motorcycle engineer in Staines, England. He named the company after the Shawnee settlement "Lagonda" in modern-day Springfield, Ohio, the town of his birth. This is a glacially eroded limestone gorge of much beauty. Historically, the area played a major role in the Treaty of Easton and the aligning of the Shawnee tribe with the British during the French and Indian War. He had originally built motorcycles on a small scale in the garden of his house in Staines with reasonable success including a win on the 1905 London–Edinburgh trial. In 1907 he launched his first car, the 20 hp, 6-cylinder Torpedo, which he used to win the Moscow–St. Petersburg trial of 1910. This success produced a healthy order for exports to Russia which continued until 1914. In 1913 Lagonda introduced an advanced small car, the 11.1 with a four-cylinder 1099 cc engine, which by 1914 featured a panhard rod and a rivetted monocoque body and the first ever fly-off handbrake.
The ratchet control button on the end of a fly-off handbrake is designed to work in the opposite way to what is normally accepted. If the lever is lifted or pulled back to the "on" position, on letting go it immediately releases unless the end button is pressed and held in place before letting go of the lever. Once set, the brake is released by lifting the handbrake lever (not pushing the button) in the setting direction (up or back). This mechanism was traditionally fitted to sports cars to facilitate a racing get-away, such as at traffic lights. It can also be used to help the back wheels to slide, without the worry of the ratchet leaving the brake on.
During World War I Lagonda made artillery shells.
After the end of the war the 11.1 continued with a larger 1400 cc engine and standard electric lighting as the 11.9 until 1923 and the updated 12 until 1926. Following Wilbur Gunn's death in 1920, three existing directors headed by Colin Parbury took charge. The first of the company's sports models was launched in 1925 as the 14/60 with a twin-cam 1954-cc 4-cylinder engine and hemispherical combustion chambers. The car was designed by Arthur Davidson who had come from Lea-Francis. A higher output engine came in 1927 with the 2-litre Speed Model which could be had supercharged in 1930. A lengthened chassis version, the 16/65, with 6-cylinder 2.4-litre engine, was available from 1926 to 1930. The final car of the 1920s was the 3-litre using a 2931-cc 6-cylinder engine. This continued until 1933 when the engine grew to 3181 cc and was also available with a complex 8-speed Maybach transmission as the Selector Special.
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