The Lagonda M45 Rapide: Britain's Most Dangerous Gentleman
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Quick Takeaways
- The Lagonda M45 Rapide was the fastest British production car of 1935 — and one of the most difficult to drive at the limit.
- It won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1935, one of the very few pre-war British outright victories at the race, driven by John Hindmarsh and Luis Fontes.
- Lagonda occupied a particular space in the 1930s British luxury market — more sporting than Rolls-Royce, more refined than Bentley, less famous than either.
- Only a handful of M45 Rapide models were built, making surviving examples among the most significant prewar British cars in existence.
The Brand Nobody Quite Remembers
Lagonda occupies an unusual position in British automotive history. It was, at various points in the 1930s, producing cars that were genuinely competitive with Bentley and Aston Martin on the race track and with Rolls-Royce in terms of coachbuilt luxury. W.O. Bentley himself joined Lagonda as technical director after Rolls-Royce acquired Bentley in 1931, and it was under his direction that the Lagonda V12 was developed.
Yet Lagonda never achieved the brand recognition of its competitors. It changed hands multiple times, produced inconsistent model lineups, and was eventually absorbed into Aston Martin in the postwar period, where it has existed since as a nameplate rather than a distinct marque. The name persists; the company does not.
Le Mans 1935
The 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1935 was won by a Lagonda. John Hindmarsh and Luis Fontes drove the M45 Rapide to an outright victory — one of the very few times a British car has won the race outright. The victory was unexpected; Lagonda was not considered the favorite, and the team had faced mechanical problems in practice.
The car's 4.5-liter inline six-cylinder engine proved reliable through the 24 hours in a way that more fancied competitors did not. Lagonda's win remains one of the distinctive results in Le Mans history, partly because it came from a manufacturer that the racing establishment hadn't fully expected to compete at that level.
The Character of the Car
The M45 Rapide is described by historians who have driven surviving examples as a car of considerable power and demanding character. The chassis is a pre-independent-suspension design — a rigid axle front and rear — which at the speeds the engine could produce made the car lively in a way that required active management from the driver.
This is consistent with most high-performance prewar British machinery. The Bentley Boys and their contemporaries weren't driving cars that were forgiving at the limit — they were managing machines that would respond precisely to a skilled driver and punish an unskilled one. The M45 Rapide sits in that tradition: capable, rewarding, and entirely uninterested in making things easy.
In photographs, the car's long hood and purposeful stance convey something of that character even at a standstill. There's a reason the prewar British racing car has a particular visual identity — and the M45 Rapide is close to the center of it.
Bottom Line
Lagonda won Le Mans in 1935 and was forgotten by most of the world shortly thereafter. The M45 Rapide that crossed the line first is one of the great prewar racing cars in British history — and it deserves more attention than it typically receives.
The 1935 Lagonda M45 Rapide is available as a color print in our British Classics series.
