Models of Yesteryear Y-11/3; 1938 Lagonda Drophead Coupé

Box notes: "This car was powered by the famous 4½ litre engine of Henry Meadows Ltd. The engine had a claimed output of 140bhp giving the car a top speed of nearly 100mph. A Lagonda using the same power unit was winner of the classic Le Mans 24 hour race of 1935"

Let's get the purple chassis issue out of the way first. metallic gold cars with a purple chassis are quoted in some of the guides at up to £2,000. The car below which is actually gold with a purple chassis is not one of these however. The valuable one has to be turned over and looked at underneath, the baseplate under the rear bumper is shorter and the bumper itself is lacking two little extra cast supports from the underside visible on all my cars. That uber-rare, uber-valuable version aside there are many other variations produced in the long life of the model from 1972 to 1985. I've trawled the available resources and identified 15 versions, some of which are in the £200 bracket and worth seeking out.

The bodywork has been copper, cream, gold, orange and orange/red, the chassis & wings can be black, gold, bright red, maroon, purple or copper. Seats can be black, maroon or green. The following combinations are hard to find and worth good money: Copper with a black chassis, Copper with gold chassis and red or green seats, cream with a gold chassis, gold with a gold chassis or orange with a gold chassis on narrow 24 spoke wheels. The more commonly found variants are out there in huge numbers and are valued quite lowly.