LAGONDA
Type: Automotive marque
Introduced: 1906
Founder: Wilbur Gunn (1906)
Country: United Kingdom
Area served: Worldwide
Owner: Aston Martin
Website: astonmartinlagonda.com
Lagonda is a British luxury car brand established in 1906, which has been owned by Aston Martin since 1947. The trade-name has not had a continuous commercial existence, being dormant several times, most recently from 1995 to 2008 and 2010 to 2013.
The Lagonda company was founded in 1906 in the UK in Staines, Middlesex, by American-born Wilbur Gunn (1859–1920), a former opera singer. He named the company after the Shawnee settlement "Lagonda" in modern-day Springfield, Ohio, the town of his birth.
Wilbur Gunn's death in 1920, three existing directors headed by Colin Parbury took charge. In 1935, the company was bought by Alan P. Good.
Richard Watney was managing director of Lagonda at the start of the Second World War.
In 1947, the company was taken over by David Brown and moved in with Aston Martin, which he had also bought, in Feltham, Middlesex.
In 2014, Aston Martin announced a large, low-bodied saloon version, the Taraf.
