Lagonda Rapide Shooting Brake
Lagonda Rapide Shooting Brake

Lagonda Rapide Shooting Brake

(1961 / 2006)

David Brown had a very soft spot for the Lagonda marque and it is because of him directly that the factory offered the Rapide Saloon alongside the much faster selling DB4 even though it got in the way of production somewhat. David Brown was also keen to expand the Lagonda range into a shooting brake and reputedly got Touring of Milan to do some sketches. But with the Rapide being such a slow seller, the potential market for a shooting brake would have been incredibly small and without doubt a commercial failure. Incredibly, these plans turned up on eBay of all places and fell into the hands of someone prepared to carry the project through.

 

Lagonda Rapide Shooting Brake

This is chassis LR/107/R which has undergone that total transformation by the Carrosserie Company (UK) Ltd of Barnard Castle, County Durham during 2005/6.

The drawings were not of sufficiently high quality and needed redrawing these to enable work to commence on the bespoke Shooting Brake. Built from the same gauge tubing in true Supperleggra style and in keeping with the original build this was then clad in hand rolled aluminium the same gauge as the original coachwork. The original boot lid was reused and cut down to fabricate into a tailgate complete with rear wash wipe and heated rear screen. Fully folding rear seats were then made and trimmed in grey leather to match the original rear seats.

The car was photographed at the AMOC Autumn Concorse at Chatsworth, September 2007 and has subsequently been sold into a private Aston Martin collection.

A photographic record of the building of this car can be seen on the Carrosserie Company website. Another interesting article on this car can be found on the Lagonda Club website