Lagonda

Lagonda won Le Mans outright in 1935 and secured its engineering immortality by hiring W.O. Bentley, whose V12 of 1937 was among the finest engines of the pre-war era. Absorbed into David Brown's empire alongside Aston Martin in 1947, the name has resurfaced periodically ever since — most memorably on William Towns's razor-edged 1976 Aston Martin Lagonda saloon, a car so uncompromisingly futuristic it has become a design-history fixture and a fast-appreciating modern classic. The pre-war cars, the V12s above all, remain the marque's collector summit.