Geneva show: Electric Lagonda SUV on market in 2022

ASTON Martin plans to shake up the top end of the motor industry with its reborn Lagonda luxury marque, vowing to “rewrite a rulebook that has been allowed to stagnate for too long” with hi-tech all-electric, autonomous and super-sophisticated models starting with an SUV now confirmed for production in 2022.

 

Previewed at the Geneva motor show this week as the production-oriented Lagonda All-Terrain Concept, the SUV will be built at a new facility in St Athan, Wales, and appeal to the same rich clientele – aka ultra-high net worth individuals – drawn to similarly opulent and practical wagons such as the Rolls-Royce Cullinan and Bentley Bentayga.

 

While Rolls-Royce, for example, remains committed to V12 combustion engine power (albeit as it works on an all-electric powertrain option) and has no intention of taking a leadership position in other areas of emerging technology such as high-level autonomy, Aston Martin is positioning Lagonda’s new-age models, led by the SUV, as “bold and forward-thinking, bristling with creativity and innovation from the way they are designed to the engineering they contain”.

 

The company sees these automotive technologies as providing “a unique opportunity for a new brand bearing one of the greatest names in motoring” and Aston Martin Lagonda president and group chief executive Andy Palmer declared in Geneva this week: “We see no limits for Lagonda.

 

“It will be a brand for the restless, for those who are anything but happy with the status quo. It will produce cars that exploit technology, without being obsessed with it for its own sake,” he said.  

 

“And it will enable Lagonda to redefine the concept of luxury within the automotive and other spheres.”

 

The Lagonda All-Terrain Concept builds on the ‘Vision Concept’ presented at the Geneva show a year ago and is described as a “near future study” that continues the evolution of the design language that will be seen on the production vehicle and other new model lines also in the works.

 

Conceived as an all-electric vehicle from the outset sees the batteries placed underneath the floor and maximum space liberated in the cabin, with Aston’s designers and engineers able to take full advantage of the fact that the SUV would never carry a traditional internal combustion engine and drivetrain.

 

Specifications and technical details remain under wraps, but the Lagonda SUV will share structural elements and componentry with Aston Martin’s forthcoming DBX SUV, which will roll down the same production line in southern Wales. 

 

It will, naturally, have four-wheel drive, pointing to an electric motor stationed at each axle, however its off-road ability is expected to be limited.  

 

Aston says the floor-mounted batteries have contributed to a large proportion of the SUV’s stiffness coming from this area, allowing the designers to fit rear-hinged doors at the back – as seen on the Vision Concept – to allow for easy ingress and egress. 

 

Points of interest in the four-seater cabin include a rear shelf that slides out from the floor to be used as a platform for occupants “to perch on” while the interior design now has more of an “even-handed ambience” front and rear compared to the rear-seat-biased “limousine atmosphere” created in the earlier concept. 

 

The front seats can still be rotated to face the rear when the vehicle is in full self-drive mode, while the high-level technology throughout the interior is kept subtle – with a few notable exceptions, such as the “floating” key position on the centre console (using electromagnets).

 

“We wanted the technology in the Lagonda All-Terrain Concept to bring a sense of personality to the vehicle,” said Aston Martin executive vice-president and chief creative officer Marek Reichman.

 

“Just as with the materials and the exterior design, the technology should be warm and involving rather than cold and impersonal. This is the future and it should be something that people are inspired and delighted by rather than perplexed and frightened by.”

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