What the car is and where it came from
It is the 1976 Aston Martin Lagonda Series 2: a full-size luxury four-door saloon designed from the ground up by William Towns. It carries the Lagonda name acquired by Aston Martin in 1947.
How it works, in terms someone would actually use
It is a full-size luxury four-door saloon with front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. The driver faces a digital instrument panel — the first in any production car — using LEDs in Series 2 and later cathode-ray tubes in Series 3.
What it gets right
It gets right the physical presence of a wedge-shaped, ground-up design — extreme, uncompromising, and unmistakably of its moment in 1970s industrial design.
What it does not
It does not deliver usable digital instrumentation. The LED display failed often. The CRT version in Series 3 proved even less reliable.
What it changed
It changed expectations of what a luxury saloon could look like and how its instruments might function — proving that radical electronics integration was possible, even when unreliable and wildly over budget.
Who it is for, and who it is not
It is for people who value architectural clarity in automotive form and are fascinated by systems pushed beyond their limits. It is not for anyone who needs a working dashboard or expects consistency between intention and execution.
Is it worth your time
Yes — if you want to understand how ambition outpaces engineering, and why digital interfaces in cars began not with usability but with provocation.
