LagondaNet

[Lagondanet]

http://www.puddleduck.uk.com/shop/VpageGal.asp?cpid=17

http://www.vassard.dk/lagonda/gallery/13302.html

[Keith]

At the request of Roger and apologies to all who will be disappointed at the lack of technical details in the following text. The first 34 pictures on Soren's site are of my car before I owned it.


My love affair with the Lagonda started when I was 18 when I saw a picture of a light blue & cream colour scheme one in a magazine and I was instantly totally smitten with car.

Move on to April 2008, 32 years later, and suddenly, there on E-Bay was "my" car. It was located in Newcastle, approxiamtely 450 miles away, so I had no opportunity to view the car before the auction closed therefore I was bidding purely on the strength of the photos that were on E-bay, and they looked really, really nice. I won the auction and within 20 minutes of the auction closing I had a mysterious e-mail from a Mr Ivett inviting me to join the Lagonda crowd.

I flew up to Newcastle to collect the car but when I saw her my heart sank because the car was not in the same condition as shown in the E-Bay photos, (which I now know to be of the car approximately 5 years earlier). The interior of the car was absolutely disgusting. Mouldy, filthy, it stank to high-heaven and was defiitely not a nice place to be in. The bodywork, however, (it seemd to me), was in reasonable condition. My heart over-ruled my head, “it onlys needs a little TLC” I thought, so I bought the car and drove her back Essex.

Just 15 miles into the journey home and she suddenly came to a stop. I was sure it was not because of fuel as the fuel guage stated I had 33% left so I called out the RAC out and lo & behold, the car had stopped because it had run out of fuel. Grrr.

Roger recommended that I should take the car to Puddleduck to see what they could do. This I did and that was the moment when the true horrors of my car's condition came to light. The lower section of the car was a total rust bucket and someone unknown attempted a very crude repair by welding several plates, masked over with many coats of undersill, to try and stem the problem - unsuccessfully of course. In short the whole car was a complete mess despite the many thousands of pounds that had been spent on her by one particular previous owner. The person I bought the car from had just neglected it completely and had kept it in a damp warehouse for several years.

Julian was at the time just finishing Ossi’s White Lightening and then his team started work on my car. The car was completely stripped out to a bare shell ; virtually the entire underside, sills and boot of the car was rotten so this was all cut away and replaced ; a new bonnet framework was custom made ; 2 large bags of “additional” internal wiring put in by previous owners was stripped away, (please do not ask me what any of this extra wiring actually did) ; countless bits were replaced like front & rear windscreens ; new seal rubbers all round, mirrors, the gear lever, dashboard binnicles, switches, and headlamps. A very special thank you goes out at this point to Bill at Puddleduck for all his very skillful hard work.

Finally on Christmas Eve 2008, the car went to be re-sprayed by Ken, a good friend of mine, who then spent the next 4 months hand sanding the car back to bare metal, applying 3 coats of primer which was then hand sanded back. Applying a second batch of 3 coats of primer, hand sanded back and then a 3rd lot of 3 coats of primer, (and yes, you’ve guessed it), hand sanded back. Then it was on with the metallic Rolls Royce Silver Blue with just an extra merest hint of more blue to give it a little more “depth” of colour. She then had 4 coats of a special ICI varnish and then the final buffing coats of polish to bring the paintwork to life. All of this work is the reason as to why I am so heart-broken now 13302 has acquired some marks and stone chips.

Now it is the turn of getting the car’s interior restored. It took ages trying to find the right colours and grade of leathers. Those of you who have done this to your own car will know how difficult it is to try and envisage what the car will look like from just a very small sample swatch. There was only one thing to do to avoid making a huge, expensive mistake: Enlist the help of known people with excellent taste, i.e. Ask a woman. In my case it was 2 women:- Val & Jane. We eventually found the right shades of colours from an Italian company so, at last, GB Classic Trim Ltd were able to make a start on the re-trimming. The roof lining was done in Alcantara. At this time also the alloy wheels were re-vamped, colour coded seat belts were installed and all of the interior wood was refaced with new veneer.

Then came all the Boyz Toyz:- A Kenwood 7” touch-screen audio head unit which does everything:- Audio, i-Pod, DVD, TV, Bluetooth and Sat Nav with 6 x JBL speakers driven by a JBL amplifier, all connected with real silver speaker wire and real silver soldered connections, and an Alpine sub-woofer. She also has a GPS radar system installed, a 180 degree angle, infa red night vision reversing camera, which is connected to the audio visual screen, and ice blue headlamp bulbs were fitted to all lamps.

The only mechanical bits that were done to the car were more or less just general servicing.

The car was ready on the eve before our first Lagonda festival trip to Belgium in August 2009. However, as many of you are aware, the gearbox failed this day and it is with huge thanks to Julian & Naomi’s efforts by working literally all through the night to repair it that the car finally made it onto Eurostar the next morning and onto Brussells and Bruge.

It is with thanks to Ossi that he awarded 13302 to become the first car to receive his new White Lightning trophy.

Since Belgium, 13302 has some more refinements done to her:-

She has got David & Robert Mark’s newly designed air conditioning system installed. This is so I can dictate when and what kind of air I want rather than her blowing hot air when the outside temperature is in the high 20’s or freezing cold air in November. It works really well and I fully recommend this upgrade to everyone.

She has had front adjustable hydraulic suspension rams fitted that can raise the nose of the car by several cms to enable her to clear speed bumps or awkward driveway ramps.

It also has a custom made wooden steering wheel that matches the interior woodwork and it took over a year to make.

The result of all this hard work by a superb team of people is the car that I am very proud to own: Lagonda 13302.