Subject: Mulliner V12
Hi Folks,
I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion on the lovely ex Ellard collection Graber V12.
I think there is more to learn about the fortunes of the Lagonda Company once peace returned in 1945, and perhaps the reasons why the V12 was not put back into production. These were very uncertain times - after the war the Lagonda Company fortunes were not that rosy. They had lost money through being sued by Rolls-Royce for using the 'Bentley' name, and Arnold Davey told me “someone in authority” had been upset at some point and their punishment was to be deny them a steel quota. It was after all a period of austerity and a Labour government!
Then along came David Brown who bought the Lagonda and Aston Martin companies. He was a very well respected industrialist. He merged the two operations and moved them to the Aston Martin factory at Feltham. Under David Brown, Alan Good, Dick Watney and W.O. Bentley moved on to pursue other opportunities and presumably David Brown made the company just concentrate on getting the LB6 into production - together with the sporty DB2 which of course used the same engine.
With the move from Staines to Feltham, presumably some tidying up took place on the old factory and enough parts were found to assemble a few post war V12s like the two here with coachbuilt bodies. The former service manager set up in a company in Staines called Davies Motors to sell and service Lagonda cars and perhaps he had a hand in their assembly before he left. This is after all what happened with Rapier cars who were were spun out from the bankrupt Lagonda Company in 1935, so we have a precedent here.
In my opinion, the Mulliner bodied V12 is the most beautiful of them all. I have posted a picture of it here. This picture came from Geoff Seaton's book. There was an article about this car in the Club magazines in the 1950's or 60's.
Mulliner went on to create the two-door R type Bentley Continental which used the standard Rolls Royce Crewe chassis and perhaps these were inspired by their work on the wonderful Lagonda V12. Rolls Royce sold about 200 of them and of course today these are very highly sought after cars.
With hindsight, although it is sad that in the 1950s we did not see something like a Graber or Mulliner V12 go into production, the 2.6 and 3 Litre cars sold well so I think David Brown probably did the right thing and thus saved to company.
In his book, Geoff Seaton said that the whereabouts of this car is not known, and somebody mentioned to me that it had been written off in a crash. How sad. Still we have the Graber V12 to admire instead.
Colin M34
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This post has been edited
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times. Last edit on May 20, 2010 9:01 am by Colin Mallett.
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