Lagonda Rapiers

3 minute(s) of a 484 minute read

The gearbox is slowly coming together. I have just located a cache of NOS ENV Spares far more than I could ever use but the vendor will not split them. If there is anyone out there who can use or is likely to need things like gear brake bands or top gear cones self adjuster springs or top gear star springs etc let me know now!

Bernie J.

5-20-2012

Hello Julian

There are several Rapiers in NZ but unfortunately with the exception of one, they only rarely see the light of day. The Kingswood Service Station car was originally the Factory Motor Show chassis which explains why it was not sold and fitted with a body until the end of the 1930s. It was first road registered in 1940. The last I heard of it it was owned by Heiner Roessler and housed in his Museum in Germany. Automuseum Melle

Its story is covered briefly with some more photographs in my book "EVER KEEN" page 29-30.

Abbott built a large number (by Rapiers Standards) of bodies, Tourer, Drop Head Coupe and Fixed Head Coupe, on Lagonda Rapiers. Ranalah provided the bulk of bodies on Rapier Car Co chassis. Tourer or Drophead coupe with just one known two seater roadster. Neither Lagonda or Rapier Cars built their own bodies on Rapier Chassis. All Rapier chassis were fitted with coachbuilt bodies. Of the 394 cars built, total production 1934-38, no two are precisely the same, every one is unique.

Bernie J.

Hi Ken

Great photograph! Now that you have BLP 79 out and about I hope that you are heeding my advice and keeping well away from Tuning "Experts" with rolling roads and exhaust gas analysers. I have just recently learnt of yet another Rapier to suffer from the dreaded "lean mixture=hole in piston" syndrome. Rapiers are the aristocrats among light cars and as such love and demand a rich diet. Nothing less than 98 octane fuel and plenty of it. Don't be put off by a slight haze of black smoke emitting from your exhaust pipe. Even at todays prices, petrol is still a whole lot cheaper than pistons, and ever so much easier to put in.

Bernie J.

5-29-2012

Wow! Almost a month later I have almost finished my PhD in Preselecterolgy. One thing I have learnt is there are no quick fixes and just when you think that you got all the adjustments right one will turn around and bite you. The other thing I have learnt is that those frightfully jolly British chaps do not supply spare parts to foreigners! Ho no, you simply pack up you gear box and airfreight it across the world, when they have "fixed" it they will tell you how many cartloads of cash to send BEFORE they return your box to you.

oldcar