Saturday 20 June 2015

LAGONDA M45 RAPIDE - Stanley Mann Racing Ltd

FROM THE SHOWROOM OF
 

STANLEY MANN RACING LTD
The Fruit Farm, Common Lane, Radlett, Herts, WD7 8PW
Telephone: 01923 52505  Fax: 01923 853496
e-mail: stanley@stanleymann.com
Opening Hours: 8:30am to 6:30pm Mon - Fri
Weekends By Appointment

 

LAGONDA  M45 RAPIDE

Registration Number: BYT 111    Chassis Number: Z11399    Engine Number: 9567
Price: £250000

" I’ve got a four and a half litre Lagonda at the moment and she’s pretty good on speed"

Ralph Richardson interviewed in 1936


The Lagonda M45 Rapide with the superb straight six Meadows 4.5 Litre engine was one of the most stylish tourers of the late 1930s.

We were delighted to buy this. Still sporting her original T9 body in excellent order and fresh from long term ownership this M45 Rapide has its original build details on file, showing it leaving the factory in July 1935 and being purchased by its second owner, a motoring enthusiast and lover of all wheeled and winged objects in 1936. This was a young chap named Ralph Richardson, better known as the actor Sir Ralph Richardson. He enjoyed the car so much it was driven by his friend Sir Laurence Olivier in a film in which they both starred with screen siren Merle Oberon called "The Divorce Of Lady X". That film, made in the new "glorious technicolour" and now viewable by the wonders of YouTube, shows this Lagonda in its original silver livery, painted thus to commemorate
the silver jubilee of King George Vth.





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