Lagonda (1976) — 1976
The 1976 Lagonda is one of the boldest and most controversial cars of its era. Styled by William Towns, its wedge-shaped body — absolutely radical for a luxury saloon — broke with everything that then existed on the premium market. Its impressive length of 5.28 metres, its entirely flat lines and its pop-up headlights make it a car that belongs to the future as imagined by the 1970s. Its fully electronic dashboard — a world first on a production car — displayed information on plasma screens, a revolutionary but sadly unreliable technology at the time.
Produced in 645 examples between 1976 and 1990, the Lagonda is today a sought-after collector’s item, prized for its unabashed extravagance and its status as an artefact of a bygone era. Its legendarily imperfect reliability — the electronic systems of the early model years caused numerous problems — did not stop figures such as Roger Moore, the royal families of the Gulf and many British aristocrats from ordering one. Its revised 1987 version, with improved electronics, is the most recommendable for collectors.