Aston Martin has a long history of side-hustle attempts at creating luxury sedans, and their first big shot at it started in the 1970s with the Aston Martin Lagonda limousine—an oddball sedan with more quirks than you could count.
Friend of the show Doug DeMuro works his way around as many of the Lagonda’s quirks as he can find in his latest video:
Some of the weirdest parts of the car, this one is a later model with fuel-injection and a few upgrades, include the boxy green computer screens for the speedometer and tachometer that’s reminiscent of the guages in the early Alien movies and the weird switchboards running along the dashboard for climate control, lights and hood release.
The Lagonda had two fuel doors, mounted on either side of the car in the c-pillar, but only one fuel tank. It also had two different horns, the fusebox was located in the middle of the dashboard where you might expect the radio to be, the parking brake is between the driver’s seat and door, and the only odometer readout is under the front-hinged hood.
As Doug points out, the back doors didn’t open very wide and the rear seating room was more cramped than you’d expect, despite this car being nearly four feet longer than the VW Golf of the time. The rear-passenger air vents are mounted behind the passengers’ heads, and the taillights open with the trunk so there’s no way for cars to see you stopped on the side of the road at night.
The car was not as sporty as an Aston Martin, as Doug mentions, but not as luxurious as a comparable Rolls Royce, leaving it in a category of it’s own that can best be defined as weird.