Unusual for an English company, Lagonda was founded by an American, Wilbur Gunn, beginning in Staines as the manufacturer of the Tri-car. From 1907 until the 1920s light cars being the theme, their 11.9hp offered competition for a while to the 11.9hp Morris Cowley. While Morris concentrated on mass production, Lagonda decided to produce top quality cars for the discerning. From the mid 1920s the firm concentrated on sports cars and tourers in the main. A new engine designer, Arthur Davidson, was brought in from Lea Francis when he introduced the 14/60 in 1926, the new 2-litre 4-cylinder sporting engine featuring twin, high mounted camshafts operating inclined valves in hemispherical combustion chambers. Power output of this advanced new design was a respectable 60bhp. This engine was to propel Lagonda production into the 1930s, the Speed Model from 1927 featuring improvements to the chassis, camshaft, con-rods, lubrication and brakes. For the 1929 season a new Low Chassis Lagonda 2-litre Speed Model was introduced, featuring revisions to the frames front end and a higher compression engine fitted with twin carburetors. In 1930 a supercharged version was introduced, the Powerplus blower mounted vertically and in front of the engine, feeding a Cozette carburetor, a stronger crankshaft and a 3-litre axle. 80mph plus was capable under normal aspiration, 90mph with the optional supercharger, and an acceptable 18mpg feeding from a 20 gallon fuel tank. Long distance trials and rallies were of immediate appeal to owners, this model being considered as one of the most usable and enjoyable vintage and PVT sports cars around, its supreme versatility proven time and time again on road, rally and race track events, Lagonda firmly establishing itself at Brooklands, and later of course at Le Mans.
LAGONDA LG45 DROPHEAD REVIEW
Lagonda's striking new model range for 1936 was unveiled late in September 1935, designated the Lagonda LG45, an abbreviation of the new company name of L.G. Motors and 4.5 litres. Offered in three body styles or as a bare chassis for those requiring bespoke coachwork, the car was based on the 10' 9'' wheelbase ZM type chassis, the LG45 representing the best of both the Rapide and M45A models, and featured softer and longer road springs damped by Luvax linked hydraulic shock absorbers, the trend for more comfort which the company now followed. The radiator was similar to that used on the Rapide, and the Girling braking system was retained. The engine was further refined and quietened, a Meadows gearbox employed, but it now incorporated a Lagonda-designed and manufactured synchromesh on third and top gears. The result was a car which, after being overseen by the talented and brilliant designer Frank Feeley, combined luxury with sports performance in exactly the way that customers had come to expect. Model range revisions were reflected by 'Sanction' numbers, the Sanction One of 1935/6 having the same engine as the M45R, but with a lower compression ratio of 6.8 : 1, while the Sanction Two of 1936 introduced twin Scintilla Vertex magnetos. The later Sanction Three of 1936/7 used an improved cross-flow inlet manifold, cast intregally into the cylinder head, onto which the carburetors were now bolted directly. The Sanction Three also featured a lightened flywheel, allowing 4,000rpm, and a stabilising bar linking the spindles of the rear shock absorbers so as to prevent any oscillation at the back. The Sanction Four was similar in many ways to Sanction Three, fitted to the new LG6, producing about 130 bhp.
LAGONDA M45 REVIEW
1933 Lagonda M45 The big and powerful 4 -litre Lagonda M45 is rightly regarded as one of the most desirable post-vintage thoroughbred cars. It was introduced by the Staines-based company in 1933, using the famous 6-cylinder 4,453cc overhead valve engine by Henry Meadows, which itself dates back to 1928. The M45 was well received as an elegant, sporting quality car, and was endowed with considerable performance by the standards of the day. It proved an instant success, and was almost as fast in closed-body form as it was with open coachwork. Upon its introduction it was the largest-engined British sporting car available, and very few competitors could even approach the performance its big 6-cylinder engine offered. The M45 model was based on the 10ft 9ins wheelbase chassis of the preceding 3-litre ZM model, reworked to accept the 4 -litre Meadows engine and its associated Meadows T8 gearbox. The long stroke engine had bore and stroke dimensions of 88.5mm x 120.65mm to displace 4,453cc, producing around 108bhp at a lazy 3,100rpm. Launched at the 1933 Motor Show, the 4 litre Lagonda M45 was the first model from the Staines sports car company to use the straight six Meadows engine, which gave the new car near 100 mph performance, allied to remarkable stamina, a prototype being driven in the 1500 miles from Dieppe to Brindisi, beating the express train by a massive 14 hours. The M45 offered performance to match the new Bentley 3 litre, at virtually half the cost, and it quickly became the fashionable model to have, notable owners being world land and sea speed record holder Sir Malcolm Campbell, and, on the publication of The Saint in 1935, Leslie Charteris in New York, in celebration of his 25th novel. A full team of specially prepared short-wheelbase M45s were built and raced in the 1934 RAC Tourist Trophy at Ards in Ulster, finishing 4th, 5th and 8th despite the handicap system favouring smaller cars, amongst only 17 finishers from a field of 40 starters. These TT cars were then re-prepared at Fox and Nicholl, locally in Tolworth, to compete in the 1935 Le Mans 24 hour race. It was Hawkers test pilot, John Hindmarsh, and Luis Fontes, a 21-year old Anglo-Portuguese, who excelled, winning this classic endurance race outright. Exclusive, just 410 M45s were completed in the 1933-35 period, most of them carrying Lagondas own coachwork. The M45 was regarded very much within its period as a fast and rugged gentlemans sporting car, quickly finding favour amongst the wealthy sporting fraternity.