SpringfieldNewsSun.com

SPRINGFIELD — The W.H. Beers 1881 History of Clark County says Lagonda is from the American Indian term for buck's horn or little horn, "which was applied to (what is now Buck Creek) ... because of (its) forked and crooked course."

A street, athletic fields and a lake at the C.J. Brown Reservoir still bear that name.

Outside of Clark County, however, Lagonda is associated with something that has a different kind of horn: a classic British automobile on a par with the Bentley.

Developed in a greenhouse in Staines, England, by Springfield expatriate Wilbur Gunn, the Lagonda will resurface Wednesday, March 4, as Aston Martin introduces a new concept car under that name or marque at the Geneva, Switzerland, Auto Show.

All of this likely would have seemed preposterous to the young Gunn as he grew up along Lagonda Creek — or even the young adult Gunn, who dabbled with a singing career and earned his keep as a worker and supervisor in a local sewing machine factory.

Son of (a Rev.) Gunn

Born in 1860 in Troy, Ohio, Gunn was the second son of John W. Gunn, who moved to Springfield when Wilbur was a toddler and who dealt in books and stationery across the street from the Bushnell Building.

John W. Gunn later was the treasurer of Lagonda Manufacturing Co., and his connections with Central Methodist Episcopal Church led him to be called reverend.

During Wilbur's childhood, the Gunn residence was at No. 3 in a differently configured Clifton Avenue, now a house at 556 S. Limestone St.

Few details of his early life survive. He is reported to have married Bertha Myers, a part of the influential Leffel family, and later moved with her to New York, where reports of his musical career survive in editions of the New York Times. (See related story below.)

Scraps of information at the Heritage Center of Clark County indicate that he either abandoned his wife or his wife's health failed. A daughter is reported to have been in the Dayton Insane Asylum.

Whether family troubles beset Gunn before or after his move to England is unclear — as is his motivation in moving: Did he cross the pond to further his musical career, start a new life or with the intention of beginning a career in manufacturing?

Also hidden in the can of worms is what, if any, connection there is between Gunn's decision to name his company Lagonda and his brother-in-law's decision to use the name for a company in Springfield.

A 1959 letter on file at the Historical Society Wilbur never "had any interest in or connection with the Lagonda Manufacturing Company," which would seem to negate the notion that he was forming another branch of the company overseas.

Another note suggests Wilbur may have had marketing in mind when choosing the name, "playing on the English fascination with the American Indian."

More clear is that Gunn possessed the family's sense of enterprise and drive.

Just as his brother, J. Newton, would lead a major rubber manufacturing company, patent a vertical file system and help to found the Harvard School of Business, Wilbur would play a prominent part in the early days of the tech revolution of his time: the automotive age.

River and road

Two books on Gunn and the Lagonda present parallel stories of his early days in England in the 1890s and his eventual marriage to widow Constance Grey, whose greenhouse became Gunn's workshop.

Upon his arrival in the early 1890s, "he was a consulting engineer in is own right, specializing in hydraulic equipment for theaters and lifts, then very fashionable," says the account in "The Lagonda: 1899-1999," a book in the Images of Motoring series.

With the new Mrs. Gunn's property on the Thames River, Gunn is reported to have taken an interest in a steam-powered marine engines, building a yacht that Geoffrey Seaton's book "Lagonda: An Illustrated History" says was "used on several occasions as the umpire's boat for the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race."

The reports say that Gunn in 1898 put an engine on a bicycle to help get himself around town more easily and the following year founded the Lagonda engineering company, "specializing in the manufacture of marine steam engines."

As more people want Gunn's motorcycles, his work alternated between land and water work until dry land won out.

The motorcycles led him to develop the Tricar, essentially a three-wheeled vehicle — two in front one in back run by increasingly more powerful engines.

The Images of Motoring account about this pereiod offers an insight into Gunn's competitive and driven character.

"Wilbur Gunn's frequent competition successes had made him a prominent person in the motorcycle movement, and he could be relied upon for a pungent and outspoken speech at any of the frequent dinners that Edwardian (motorcycle) enthusiasts seemed to enjoy."

Even his flamboyant advertising and impressive technical advances, however, could not save Gunn's Tricar from the more versatile motorcycle with a sidecar. "In the middle of 1907, Tricar demand suddenly dried up, and by 1908 had vanished altogether," the Images of Motoring report says. Gunn then applied what he'd learned in making 69 Tricars to building an automobile.

A fourth wheel

He formed a new company called Lagonda Cars and produced what essentially was a four-wheel version of the Tricar, boosting its horsepower from an original 12 to 18 and entering it in competitions to get it in front of the buying public. A 1910 competition hosted by Russia's czarist government helped the Lagonda to gain international prominence.

"The car chosen (for the competition) was a 16/18 horsepower open tourer with absolutely no weather protection — not even a windscreen — but with an eye-catching finish achieved by dusting aluminum powder on to wet gold size," the Images of Motoring book says.

The route of the reliability test from St. Petersburg to Moscow ran more than 2,000 miles, over which Gunn and Bert Hammond, his co-driver and mechanic, were accompanied by a Russian observer in full army uniform, inicluding spurs.

Although the contest initially produced no clear winner, Gunn's team was the only one to take up a tie-breaking challenge of a one-day 400 mile drive from Moscow back to St. Petersburg. When they successfully finished the trip, they won the gold medal and more.

"The observer (in their car) was so impressed that he ordered a Lagonda on the spot," the account says, "and a considerable number of sales followed."

Two revolutions

In 1912, Gunn shifted gears much as Henry Ford did, producing a more affordable 11.1 horsepower car for the mass market.

Seaton said the design was "revolutionary... the first car to be made of unit construction."

When the war broke out and the British government requisitioned horses for the army, demand grew for the cars, then for vans needed to haul supplies. But the factory eventually shifted over to making shell fuses for the war effort and Gunn had to revolutionize something else: his factory's design.

He installed a small trolley system to help his now mostly female work force move around heavy production parts, a parts moving system he retained after the war.

Seaton says Gunn "worked excessive hours" during the war, "often being in the works both day and night."

The bell tolls

The end of the war brought yet another frenetic time to the Lagonda works. Says the Images of Motoring account: "The munitions contracts stopped abruptly ... and left Gunn and his few remaining veterans of 1914 with the task of re-converting the factor to car production as quickly as they could."

Gunn also joined Maj. William Oates as a principal driver in competition cars needed to keep the Lagonda name in front of the public. But the long hours during the war years and the effort required to retool took their toll. Gunn died of cancer in 1920 at age 60.

Passing on a name

The Lagonda Club, a group of car enthusiasts, still looks after Gunn's grave in Englefield Green Cemetery, and club members are "absolutely delighted" that the Lagonda name is to be revived by Aston Martin, said executive secretary Colin Bugler.

Members in 1999 brought a dozen Lagondas to Springfield for a celebration of the centennial of Gunn's manufacturing activities, bearing out Bugler's statement that "although Lagonda cars are fairly rare, their owners are incredibly enthusiastic about them."

They're nearly as enthusiastic about the man who gave the word Lagonda a whole new meaning.

For the Lagonda Club's concise history of the brand and its manufacture, visit www.btinternet.com/~colin.mallett/history.html

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0368 or tstafford@coxohio.com.