Transported by a refurbished Lagonda

I was introduced to the Lagonda motor car when I was a college student in Edinburgh, Scotland. A friend invited me to her family sheep farm south of Edinburgh. Passing through one of the large stone barns, she pointed to a rusting automobile chassis cobwebbed to the wall.

"A Lagonda," she commented in a tone of reverence. Sensitive to tests of the depths of American ignorance, I said nothing.

Half a century later, I recalled that prescient moment while meditating over the pages of The Hemmings Motor News, the Bible of antique automobilia. The advertisement was for a 1953 Lagonda. I opened the website and there it was, on my computer screen, transported from central Pennsylvania through the miracle of electrons. It was a drop-head coupe, a convertible. It had been elegant. but large areas of aluminum bodywork were visible where paint had peeled away. The rusting front bumper, bent up on one side, pleaded for care. It appeared more neglected than abused.

We all know the warnings against buying a car without kicking its tires, but I had no time to fly out to see it. The dealer sent me a roll of photos that was encouraging. It was risky, but there is always some element of risk to romance, and I had fallen in love. I don't use the word casually. Love is an absolute starting point in automobile restoration. And it must be a deep, abiding love to sustain one through the dirt, sweat, toil, and tears necessary to the task. For, not only will the depth of your love be tried, but also the love of those around you. And in addition to love - you have to be a little crazy.

I had a 1948 Triumph roadster that was splendid in its new cream-colored paint and bright chromework. It had red leather upholstery and a dickey seat, a rumble seat, and a fold-up windshield that fascinated everyone. It was one of many British cars that had left an emotional imprint on me during my impoverished student days in the early 1950s. It ran fairly well and always got smiles and prizes in our local Rotary auto show. But I never felt safe driving it. Experience confirmed inadequate brakes and a propensity for the rear end to swivel around to overtake the front. In a reprint from an early Motor Magazine article, a test driver concluded with the warning, "It's a death trap." It was time for a change.

The value of my car seemed equal to the asking price of the Lagonda. I called the dealer and proposed to swap - my desirable, running, sellable roadster for his, Lagonda is not well known, and even among those that do have a high regard for the marque, the postwar cars are regarded as "really not top drawer." The car's most obvious need was a bankroll to bring it back to life.

When his trailer arrived, the dealer had trouble starting the car to back it out. It wheezed slowly up my drive, wreathed in an ever-growing cloud of oily smoke. We turned the engine off to let the smoke dissipate before pushing it into my shop. Such is the intoxication of a new love that I drove my glittering roadster into his trailer with no sense of loss.

Lagonda is not an Italian car, as some suppose; rather, the name is Indian. Wilbur A. Gunn spent his childhood in the village of Lagonda, near Springfield, Ohio. Gunn carried the name with him when he began building small marine engines and established a factory in Staines, England. In 1904 this became The Lagonda Motor Co. Ltd.

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