Less than two years after the first design sketches of the Aston Martin Lagonda were committed to paper, the new super-sport sedan is a reality and its incredibly limited production run is underway.
At over five meters long and with a rumbling baritone note courtesy of a 6-liter V12 under its long, sloping hood, no matter how rare a sight it will be, it will be impossible to miss and equally difficult to forget if you are lucky enough to glance one in the flesh.
The new Aston Martin, a 21st-century homage to the misguided yet glorious 1976 original, has been summoned into existence because of unprecedented demand from the Middle East and, for the moment at least, that is where every painstakingly hand-built example will be heading.
The original William Towns-designed Lagonda, which debuted in 1976, was meant to be a sports limousine for the modern age. Its wedge-shaped exterior was indeed striking and futuristic and one needed to look to Italy and the Lamborghini Countach to find anything similarly bold and angular in such an otherwise dull decade.
And while the Countach was a look-at-me supercar, the Lagonda was meant to be the epitome of high-tech sophistication with TV sets instead of gauges and back-seat entertainment systems.
Demand, particularly in the Middle East, outstripped supply and it took Aston Martin years to catch up. Unfortunately the cars it did produce weren’t the most reliable in the company’s history and the Lagonda ended up being less than a success story.
However, the new car should suffer none of its forebear’s foibles. It’s based on the platform used for the Aston Martin Rapide, the four-door take on the DB9, and every component is tried and tested from its Cosworth built-V12 to the automatic transmission, gauges and switchgear.
However, even though the car is now ready to meet its public, Aston Martin is still being coy about the final details, such as performance figures and of course, the small matter of its price tag. But if it truly is an homage to the original, that number will be pretty high. When the Lagonda launched in 1976 it was the world’s most expensive mass-produced car.
