ARNOLD DAVEY
Introduction
The Early Days
On to Four Days
On to four Wheels
A Car for the Mass Market
The First World War
Eleven and Twelves
The Roaring Twenties
Depression Years
Triumph and Disaster
A New Beginning
The Best Car in the Word
War and Aftermath
The David Brown Years
Recent History
The Lagonda Club
Lagonda is Britain's second oldest surviving make of car; only Daimler is older. In its first century the make saw many dramas and abrupt changes of both direction and ownership. Its history starts with motorcycles, graduating via tricars to cars, initially with a focus on cars for professional and luxury market, a change of policy led to tiny, simple cars for the masses. Interrupted by the First World War, the cars slowly grew once more until Lagondas were again at the high end of the market. Bankruptcy came just as a Lagonda won at Le Mans in 1935. With a last minute rescue, the reborn company prospered until the Second World War. However, post-war bureaucracy brought it down again, for it to be rescued by David Brown. The cycle of boom and bust seemed to repeat itself several times until the company was purchased by Ford in the late 1980s. Arnold Davey has been an official of the Lagonda Club for over forty years and, as Registrar, has collected together the Club's archives, from which these images have been selected to offer a concise overview of the marque with mainly contemporary images. Some photographs are familiar, some reproduced here for the first time. Not all are of cars, as the people who made and drove them are just as important and Lagonda has always thrived on larger-than-life characters, starting with its founder, Wilbur Gunn.
