The Safety of Power Its gear-ratio, gear-silence and low-compressioned multi-
cylinder engine give it an all-round performance I have never seen excelled, only once, perhaps equalled. You can drive it at over 8o miles an hour on ;turd and (I believe, though I did not attempt it myself) at 70 on second with such smoothness that except at the peak of speed you might imagine yourself to be on top. Nobody wants to do anything so flamboyantly foolish, but the fact that it is part of the car's general capabilities enormously increases its scope and safety. You can accelerate out of a tight place not only at very high speed but with such braking power available at throttle-closing, plus the action of the brakes themselves, as should make the average decent driver a model of skill and safety.
Frankly I found driving the Lagonda a new experience of the most fascinating kind. It is superlatively well sprung, it holds the road faultlessly and its control is so light and easy that it never occurred to me that I was driving a Ito-mile-an- hour car weighing 37 cwt. and registering 18o h.p. These figures suggest the favourite monster of the rabid and ignorant reactionary, but the plain fact is that all that power, so beautifully controlled, makes the car as safe as it is possible for any motor-car to be. At any price such a car would be a feather in the assembled caps of any nation's designers ; at between £1,485 and L1,680 or so for normal first-class coachwork it is nothing less than a triumph. It should take its place among the very few really great cars in motoring history.
Previous page
