History

The Lagonda Rapier was designed by Tim Ashcroft in 1933 and went into production in 1934 with it's twin overhead cam 1104cc engine (62.5 dia bore x 90.0 stroke). The cars were sold without a body which was mainly supplied by Abbot although other body makers such as Eagle and March also built bodies for their customers.

The cars carried on being built successfully for just over one more year before the company hit financial difficulty. During 1935 Lagonda went in to liquidation, a take-over bid came from A.Good who had backing from W.O. Bentley, shortly afterwards it was decided that the Rapier was not worth keeping in production. This allowed Tim Ashcroft, William Oates and Nevil Brockelbank to put in a bid to run the production of the Rapier. To this end the three became directors of their newly formed company, Rapier Cars Limited. Cars built before the new company was formed had the Lagonda badge on their radiator (as seen at the top of this page) and cars built by Rapier cars limited had a new badge [ badge ].

Rapier cars Limited carried on with the production of the Rapier until 1937, although there were cars registered later than this in 1938.

Help increase this content and accuacy of this section. If you know of accurate interesting historical facts about Lagonda Rapiers or have any pictures we would love to be able to publish them here. please contact history@lagondarapier.co.uk