Lagonda Rapiers

3 minute(s) of a 484 minute read

Some people will tell you that it is sad that "cars" especially from the teens to the late thirties seem to dominate my life. That is certainly not sad for me and far from dominate my life those cars have expanded my life in so many ways. This Forum is a classic example but even beyond that these same cars have taken both of "us", H & I to places other people can only dream about and others have just not even thought about. Certainly we have not seen as much of the USA as perhaps we would like to but we have seen some of it and made lots of American Friends. Very much because of their English origins the cars that I have always been involved with, we have made numerous visits to the UK, likewise because of Helen's love of France and all things French we have an understanding that we try to spend the same amount of time in France as in England. Because we are very normal people living on an "Age Pension" we have had to restrict our "Over Seas" visits to once every five years. Fortunately I get a great deal of pleasure form working on "interesting cars" which means that I am able to do the bulk of the work on them myself. While I have absolutely no formal training in Engineering, necessity is a great teacher. Over the years I have owned a huge number of cars some only for days and none for as long as our present Lagonda Rapier. For me it ticks so many boxes I cannot think of another make or model that I would swap it for.  Right now I am having so much pleasure from preparing the Rapier for our next o/s trip with it. Our plans are starting to fall into place with the Fougeres Rally in Normandy, traditionally our first  French event taking place in May 2019. Allowing six to eight weeks for the car to reach the UK by sea means that "everything" must be done by March.  While that may seem a long way off these things have a nasty habit of creeping up if you do not keep an eye on them.  You can now simply sit back and watch. Hold on tight!

To give you some idea of the remote country last weekends Rally took us through here is one typical photograph. Higher up there was still snow on some peaks and in the valleys. At one stage we were driving VERY SLOWLY through dense fog where all we had to guide us was the edge of the road directly beside the car. In many places there were no guide posts or safety barriers and a long drop into the valley below. Creeping along in first and second gear.