Andrew Frankel: ‘Lagonda could have been the Rolls-Royce of electric age. Instead, it’s dead’
“There was an opportunity to relaunch Lagonda as a funky, all-electric brand”
As I was driving the Rolls-Royce Spectre, reviewed elsewhere in this issue, I found myself struck by a bad case of the what-might-have-beens, and it had little to do with the Roller. Instead I was thinking of another car I first saw six years ago which, had it (or something similar) made it into production, would have cast the Spectre in a different light. It was the Vision Concept and though it was the work of Aston Martin, it would be another set of wings that were flown from its bonnet – Lagonda.
The plan was simple and elegant: with Bentley having abandoned the super-luxury market when it killed the Mulsanne and no sign yet of Rolls-Royce rekindling its interest in EVs, there was a big fat opportunity to relaunch Lagonda as a super-funky, ultra-premium all-electric brand. Not only would it beat its rivals to market with an EV, while they would be traditional and staid, it would look like something from the next century, because EV design allowed that. Lagonda would have had its global headquarters in California which would have been completely consistent with the brand’s history whose founder, Wilbur Gunn, was an American who named his company after Lagonda Creek in Springfield, Ohio. In theory at least I thought it a brilliant idea, and part of me still does.
But it never happened: instead Aston Martin overstretched itself, Covid arrived, CEOs departed and the whole project was quietly shelved. And while I think in our hearts we all knew the plan was gone, it was still sobering to hear just a few weeks ago Lawrence Stroll say specifically of Lagonda, “That idea is completely dead and has absolutely nothing to do with our electric vehicle plan.”
Is Lagonda really dead? With every passing year it looks more likely. The current management will be very aware of the trouble Mercedes-Benz found itself in when it tried to revive an old name that meant little to most people and used it to try to manufacture a new luxury brand. Today Maybach denotes little more than the top trim level on a Merc. But it’s a pity. I think Lagonda is a beautiful name and in the distant pre-war past was attached to some truly beautiful and wonderfully capable cars too. I’ll miss it.
One of the briefs for this column is that it should reflect on what its author has been up to over the last month, but as this time around that included a chunk of time climbing Kilimanjaro, I may struggle to fulfil it. I did toy with the idea of regaling you with tales of my heroism nearly six vertical kilometres above the more usual surface of the earth, but as what actually happened was that I was reduced to a whimpering, gasping wreck whose only thought upon reaching the summit was to swear on all he held dear never to attempt anything quite so stupid again, I decided against it. Besides, the only form of transport up there is called a helicopter and if you find yourself departing the mountain in one of those, you’ll have more pressing matters to consider than the material with which you plan to fill your next column.
Just before I left however I did find time to cast my vote for the annual Car of the Year award. It is sometimes known as European Car of the Year because the 58-strong jury is drawn from motoring journalists in 22 countries across the continent, but that title is not just wrong, it’s misleading, suggesting we focus only on European cars. We don’t. This year’s shortlist of seven cars came not only from Europe but as far afield as Japan, South Korea and China.
The award is now 60 years old and, startlingly, I’ve already served on its jury for a quarter of that time, but as they kick you out when you reach 65, that’s the last significant milestone I’ll make. In those six decades there have been some fabulously worthy winners: the P6 Rover in 1964, Porsche 928 in 1978, Peugeot 405 in 1988, Ford Mondeo in 1994, Fiat Panda in 2004 and Jaguar I-Pace in 2019. And so too have their been some absolute clunkers: in my time I recall the Vauxhall Insignia beating both the Ford Fiesta and sixth-generation Golf in 2009 and in 2014 the utterly forgettable Peugeot 308 trouncing the BMW i3 and Tesla Model S. Not good.
I’d not say this year’s was the strongest shortlist we’ve seen of late, but I was happy to see the new Renault Scenic run out the winner, with the BMW 5 Series in second place. But actually the car with the most potential was the Volvo EX30 – great looking, very refined and surprisingly good to drive as it is. But I’ve been critical of its pretty but ludicrously impractical button-free interior before and this time it found an entire other way to completely annoy me.
“I spotted a minuscule readout saying I had three miles range left”
Each year I arrange a day where all the UK jurors meet to drive the shortlisted cars on the same tough testing route, which is where I noticed the Volvo’s performance dramatically tailing off. Squinting at the screen I spotted a minuscule readout saying I had three miles range left, despite the car having just come off a truck from Volvo. There were no other warnings. I drove at 20mph until the range said zero and half of Northamptonshire was backed up behind me, and abandoned ship. Yes, I should have checked before I left, but I still can’t believe a Volvo would let even an idiot like me get stranded without beeping, bonging and flashing bright lights at him first.
A former editor of Motor Sport, Andrew splits his time between testing the latest road cars and racing (mostly) historic machinery
Follow Andrew on Twitter @Andrew_Frankel