Lagonda at Wiscombe Park

Mark Hayward in his awesome 4.5 Litre Lagonda LG45 (1937) at the recent 2021 Wiscombe Park VSCC meeting. Of the 278 LG45’s produced, only 25 were in “Tourer” specification. For the event, Mark removed the headlights just in case he suffered an "off".

The LG45 tourer was inspired by the 1935 Le Mans win and was based on the race cars. The car was launched in 1936 and designed by 25 year old Frank Feeley.

The 1935 24 Hours Le Mans race gave Lagonda an historic win. The Arthur W. Fox & Charles Nicholl team of Johnny Hindmarsh and Luis Fontés in a 5 Litre Lagonda M45R Rapide completed 222 laps and won from the 3 Litre Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 of Pierre Louis-Dreyfus and Henri Stoffel by 5.2 miles at an average speed of 77.8mph.

Alfa Romeo started the 1935 race as favourites – they had won every Le Mans since 1931.

The race was, however, a controversial one and it did not end well for the Italian cars. In the final hour, Lagonda’s Fontés pitted with oil pressure issues. Still 2 laps ahead of the sole remaining Alfa, he re-joined the race, but at a slower pace. The other Alfa’s had suffered mechanical woes during the night, and had retired by that stage.

With 20 minutes remaining, the commentator announced that the Alfa had overtaken the Lagonda and was now leading. To nurse the car to the line, Dreyfus in the Alfa eased off...and then with five minutes remaining, race officials realised that they had made a mistake, and the Alfa was actually 5 miles behind the Lagonda...and that was how the race finished.

Luis Fontés became the youngest ever winner at 21. Unusually, the Lagonda was painted red, not the traditional British racing green.

The success of Lagonda is arguably down to the influence of engineer Walter Owen Bentley. WO had to sell his eponymous company, which he founded in 1919, to Rolls Royce in 1931. Racing driver and diamond heir, “Bentley Boy” Woolf Barnato, had owned Bentley since 1925 and WO became an employee. Woolf was convinced to buy the company after the Bentley 1924 Le Mans win but by the early 30’s, he was not prepared to carry on funding it. WO continued to work for Rolls Royce, but was dissatisfied and left when his contract expired in 1935 and joined Lagonda.

A week after the Le Mans win, Lagonda was itself in receivership. The company was bought by entrepreneur Alan Good and W O Bentley joined the board as Technical Director, and brought with him the majority of Rolls Royce’s racing department.

In 1947, Lagonda was then purchased by David Brown and integrated with another of his recent purchases, Aston Martin.