| It's very
difficult to know into which section of the website to put the
unique Lagonda Vignale. It doesn't have a direct link to a previous
model, and at first glance anyway, it doesn't appear to lead
anywhere either! But I have had to make a firm decision, and that is
to use the Lagonda Vignale to begin the story of the V12 Vanquish -
and as you're now confused, I had better explain.
The Lagonda Vignale
was commissioned by AML (already fully owned by Ford) from Ghia
Design (also part of the Ford family) to be shown at the 1993 Geneva
Salon. The exterior design was by Moray Callum - an interesting
co-incidence as the Geneva Salon 1993 was the first appearance of
the DB7, the work of Moray's brother, Ian. This somewhat large car
was built on a Lincoln chassis with Lincoln independent front and
solid self levelling rear suspension and was powered by a 4.6 litre
(190bhp, 260 lb/ft) Lincoln Town Car V8. The reality of the concept
is that physically, it had no recognisable AML parts at all. But,
had this fabulous car made production (and many thought that it
would), the chassis would have become an extruded aluminium affair,
the suspension was to be fully independent and the engine would have
been a 6.0 litre V12. Whilst these features never made it into a
production Vignale - they are exactly the same as found in the the
V12 Vanquish a few years later.
I still to this day
don't know why this incredible automobile didn't make
production. It's retro yet radical styling looks as fresh today as
it did way back in 1993. |
|
Certainly two Vignales were built by Ghia. The blue car shown above, was sold at the famous
auction of Ford prototypes in Dearborn in June 2002 for a massive $403,500
(including buyers premium), many times above the estimate of $60,000 to
$120,000. I believe the other car whilst a running vehicle, was not fully
engineered and it was subsequently destroyed.
All photographs are copyright Aston Martin Lagonda |
