The Aston Martin Lagonda was revealed at the London Motor Show in 1976 and at the time certainly looked different.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
There’s a term for people who fall in love with Aston Martin Lagondas. They say they’ve been “Lagonda’d,” and other owners will nod in sympathy. It usually refers to an ungodly committal of time and money, and for what? The restoration of a 40-year-old, overly complicated vehicle that barely deserved to exist even then?
“If you’ve been Lagonda’d, you’ve set yourself up for Whac-a-Mole because this is never going to end, unless it ends badly,” says the owner of this 1983 Aston Martin Lagonda Series 2. As soon as one thing is repaired, another random item will break, every time. “The British make an art out of being whacked out, and the Lagonda was the pinnacle.”
The Toronto entrepreneur and owner of the vehicle asked to remain anonymous to avoid revealing where the car is stored. In addition to the Lagonda, the businessman owns a collection of other makes and models.
He is happy, however, for all the attention to be focused on his fascinating car.
At the time in the 1980s, the displays, buttons and electronics were cutting edge and long before their time.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
The Lagonda was supposed to be the saviour of Aston Martin after the storied British marque declared itself bankrupt at the end of 1974. It was not enough to build James Bond’s car – the vehicles were beautiful but unreliable. Research and development was almost non-existent, and the costly, hand-built cars renounced assembly automation mostly because the factory machinery was left over from the 1930s and ‘40s. The company was brought back from the brink by American investor Peter Sprague and Canadian hotelier George Minden, among others, and the Lagonda was to be its flagship.
Sprague made his money importing frozen chickens to Iran, and along the way, at 26 years old, became chairman of National Semiconductor. He saw the potential for Aston’s new sedan to lead the way with automotive electronics, and the car is filled with too much wizardry for its own good: Its LED displays and touch-sensitive buttons look quaint now, but were cutting edge long before their time.
“From the hand-beaten aluminum bodywork and 20 coats of paint, to its interior fittings and revolutionary new electronics, everything about this car is made to last a lifetime,” says a promotional film from the late 1970s.
Except it wasn’t. “The Series 2 touch buttons didn’t work,” says the Toronto owner. “They were underdeveloped – a very thin membrane, and if you press on them, they only have so many presses before they don’t work any more.”
The unreliable pop-up headlights on the 1983 Aston Martin Lagonda Series 2.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
The Aston Martin Lagonda was revealed at the London Motor Show in 1976 and the first model was delivered to owners in 1977.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
In fact, the Lagonda didn’t work from the start. The car was revealed at the London Motor Show in 1976 but it wasn’t running; Sprague wrote later that the BBC filmed the car rolling gently downhill with a happy driver at the wheel and heavy construction blocks in the trunk to compensate for its missing transmission.
When the first car was delivered in 1977 to its new owners, Lord and Lady Tavistock at Woburn Abbey, in front of dozens of invited press, its National Semiconductor computer board had developed a bug and the car wouldn’t run. Undeterred, the company loaded it backward onto a flatbed truck with a ramp and took it to the event. It once again coasted silently down the ramp and came to a halt in front of the media, where it was locked and left to look pretty for photos.
The car certainly looked … different. There had been a fairly conventional Series 1 sedan, of which only eight were built, that was basically an Aston Martin DBS sports car with four doors, but it was the Series 2 that grabbed attention. It was redesigned totally under the company’s new ownership and its price was astronomical for the time, at about US$150,000. It was an enormously long wedge with a length of more than five metres and a wheelbase of almost three metres — that’s as long as a modern Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan. Under the long, hand-beaten aluminum hood was a 5.3-litre V8 that was good for 280 horsepower, fuelled by four Weber carburetors and mated to a three-speed Chrysler automatic transmission. Top speed was 230 kilometres an hour, and its zero-to-100 kilometres-an-hour acceleration was about seven seconds, with the wind behind it.
Under the hood of the Aston Martin Lagonda is a 5.3-litre V8 that was good for 280 horsepower.
Each Aston Martin Lagonda was hand built, mostly because the factory machinery was left over from the 1930s and ‘40s.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
“To me, this car is completely infused with Peter Sprague and the glorious enthusiasm of that era, when we landed on the moon and we had the Concorde,” says the owner. “There’s so much humanity in this. It’s not metal and leather – it’s people. It’s spirit. You get into the car and, for all intents and purposes, it’s 1983.”
The soft, light-blue leather is overstuffed and the original dark blue carpeting is thick – too thick to be practical away from a showroom floor. The rear seats are cramped. The touch-sensitive vinyl buttons have been repaired with new relays and laser-printed housings, and the sound of the horn can be switched effectively between an urban toot and a rural honk.
When I drive it, the suspension is soft and compliant and grand touring, almost floating over Toronto’s chopped pavement.
The owner paid $76,125 for it when he bought it in 2017, rescued from neglect after decades in a Vancouver garage. He’s spent another $40,000 since then to fix issues like a gasoline leak, temperamental air conditioning and the various non-working electronics.
Now, “it’s worth $60,000″ but it’s not for sale, and he says he’d rather crush it than have someone else buy it and complain about its flaws. “The Lagonda is a car of eccentric interest, not of monetary interest,” he says. “It’s just a car for pure interest.”
A total of 645 Lagondas were hand-built until its production ended in 1990. The Series 3 of 1986 was fuel-injected and changed the LED instrumentation to a vacuum fluorescent display, while the Series 4 of 1987 rounded out some of the distinctive sharp edges and got rid of the unreliable pop-up headlights. It’s the Series 2, however, that created the Lagonda reputation for British automotive eccentricity.
“There’s no exit strategy out of this car,” says the Toronto owner, who accepts being Lagonda’d and is now dug in with his commitment. “It’s a Sisyphean task – a test of will. We’re going to fly the flag over this lump of iron, because it really speaks to the spirit of life.”
The top speed of the Aston Martin Lagonda was 230 kilometres an hour, and its zero-to-100 kilometres-an-hour acceleration was about seven seconds.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail