The Rapide and Le Mans
At the 1934 Motor Show an even faster 4.5 Litre, called the Rapide, was introduced, using a chassis 6 inches shorter, fitted with the new Girling brakes and a modernised body. The 3 Litre was dropped to be replaced with a 3.5 litre-engine version of the Rapide chassis. The Rapide had already gained much publicity in the 1934 Tourist Trophy race in Ulster, where a team of three, run by Fox & Nicholl, had fought a fierce battle with the Hall Bentley. Two of this team then contested the 1935 Le Mans race which Hindmarsh and Fontes won after a race-long battle in atrocious weather with the Alfas and Bugattis. Lagonda could take little advantage from this win as they were in receivership at the time, after the bank had shut them down in April, when the introduction of the 30 mph speed limit had temporarily destroyed their sales prospects. In fact the company was up for sale, with tenders to be returned the day after the Le Mans win.
The V12 and W.O.Bentley
The successful bidder was Alan Good, a solicitor turned tycoon with access to plentiful funds. He was able to recruit W.O. Bentley as Technical Director, who, by the end of 1935 had re-introduced the 4.5 Litre in a revised form (the LG45) and set about designing Good’s aim “The best car in the world”. This was the V12, launched very prematurely in 1936 and fully at the end of 1937. A very complex 4.5 litre engine in a wholly new chassis, independently sprung at the front, it had 100 mph performance in great comfort and a 6-cylinder version, the LG6, was available for customers put off by the fuel bills and tax liability. Two special racing V12 contested the 1939 Le Mans race, with great hopes for 1940, but three months after the race, all car production stopped at the outbreak of the second world war.
The DB cars
Once it became clear that the Allies were likely to win, W.O. set about designing a post-war car. A gloomy market prediction led him to rule out re-introducing the V12 and led him to design a smaller (2.6 litre) six cylinder car, for which a brand new twin ohc engine and an all-independently sprung chassis were proposed. By VE Day three hand-made prototypes had been built and were being tested. But the 1945 government had little sympathy for expensive cars and issued a completely useless steel allocation. So Lagonda, well financed for the first time in its life, couldn’t build any cars. Good severed his interest and the company was sold to David Brown, already the owner of Aston Martin and keen to buy W.O’s brilliant engine to put in them. Brown had his own access to steel and the 2.6 finally went into production late in 1948.
By the end of 1952 the 2.6 was beginning to look a bit outdated, so a revised body design, originally drawn up by Tickford and fitted to a few bespoke 2.6s, was made into the DB 3 litre, which used a revised version of the Bentley engine, bored out to give 3 litres by using asymmetric connecting rods. The two-door saloon was soon joined by a four-door and a drophead coupe. Production of the 3 litre finally ended at the end of 1957, by which time all Aston Martin Lagonda production had moved to the old Tickford plant at Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire.