Lagondaforum

Subject: Rapides being raced in the 1960's

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A nice reference to Lagonda Rapides being raced in the 1960's, after one, LR118, being spiced up by Richard Williams and Ian Mason. Both of whom were at one time AML employees.

Also a good review of the car and its problems in production.

From Classic and Sports Car, dated 1990, it has taken over 20 years for the predictions to come true.

http://www.lagonda1949-1958.co.uk/...orgottenLagonda.html

A nice read with some very insightful comments and ideas.

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Subject: Re: Rapides being raced in the 1960's

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Simon, thanks for posting the link. For interest, the picture of LR118 on Madeira Drive was taken on 12 September 1964, when the car (number 52) came first in Class 4 for 4-seater saloons over 2000cc in 29.5 seconds. Although the terminal speed was not recorded for this run, the car ran in another class that day (number 17) coming first (on handicap) as well, in a time of 29.74 seconds with a speed over the final 44 yards of 109 mph. It is also interesting to see the picture from Silverstone (number 50) when driven by Ian Mason (not Jon as per the article) as it is clearly the same car but with Swiss registration plates, however I think the article is wrong in saying it was 1965 as the original Bentley Drivers Club archive of which I have copy is clearly listed as either Class 8 or Class 11 in 1967. In Class 8, the car achieved a fastest lap of 1'19" for an average speed of 73.28 mph

Subject: Re: Rapides being raced in the 1960's

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Fabulous record keeping if I may so.

RSW certainly must have spiced this car up a fair bit indeed and lost a lot of weight from the complete car to make it this competitive. Do you have any better pictures of the car in its hey-day, you would be willingly to post on the forum ?

RSW was a very good AM man, and I remember him back from his early Brixton days. A charming man, who clearly loved the cars and his work.

Good to see at least 3 years of racing history for this car. Am I correct that it currently resides in Europe today and in fine fettle ?

Is this the only Rapide known to have been raced or are there others I have not discovered ?

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Subject: Re: Rapides being raced in the 1960's

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Simon, I have a 10x8 wetfilm copy of the image with number 52 in the magazine, also one from Snetterton track testing wearing 118, but am not sure who owns copyright. As far as I know the car is in USA. It's (never?) been in either LC or AMOC, and I think last changed hands publicly in 1980 through the Robin Hamilton auction, Lot 76. It had a 4-speed DB gearbox and special series cylinder head with triple SU carbs from new, also oil cooler in the valence, and must have had a modified exhaust because it was once described as "fast and very noisy" on the track at BDC Silverstone in August 1964, its first competition outing. I'd suppose it was tuned to 290 bhp or thereabouts, and at Ghent speed trials achieved 140 mph, not bad for such a bus. It's now LHD