Its easy to dismiss the Seventies as an era bereft of any meaningful cultural icons since it was also the decade of chest hair, gold medallions, disco and 8-Track cassettes and Charlies Angels. But the Seventies were also the decade of forgetting about the giant mess that the Sixties had devolved into after its promising start and in overcoming the bad start that the decade had gotten off to with Watergate, Inflation and OPEC. The Seventies were also a time of economic uncertainty, an oil crisis and labor strife. In the middle of the decade, Aston Martin deemed that sales of its GT cars would be incapable of sustaining the company for long and decided to produce the first saloon in the history of the firm. The Lagonda was certainly a creature of its time and its unique William Towns designed shape is dated now, but was then considered avant garde and cutting edge. With the first wholly computer managed control systems and CRT displays it was intended to be a technological tour de force. In reality - not so much. It was expensive, one of the three most expensive cars in the world during the time it was sold from 1976-1990. Changes were made to soften the razors edge styling and the CRT screens gave way to proper instruments, but after an initial flurry of orders sales trickled off and only 645 were built over the entire production run. Derided as both one of the worlds worst and ugliest cars by certain experts, it is a restoration nightmare and unmolested examples are hard to find. Still, it was a landmark car for its time and one of the surest ways to transport yourself to the Roger Moore era of James Bond when Britain was cool and excess was okay. Just be sure to get a Barry White tape for the stereo and some groovy companion to sit beside you on the sumptuous leather.
Posted on: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:38:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015