Aston Martin Lagonda (1976)
Aston Martin embraced all that was cutting edge for in-car tech when it launched the Lagonda in 1976 at a heady £24,570 – at a time when the average house in UK at the time cost £13,000. It bristled with touch-sensitive panels in place of buttons and digital displays rather than analogue clocks in a cabin that was as angular as the exterior. It was just what very wealthy buyers wanted, but they weren’t so keen on the reliability of these gadgets that had a habit of failing and were hugely expensive to put right due to their complexity.
Aston Martin simplified the Lagonda’s interior for later models, though it still retained its digi-dash. By then, sales had dwindled to a trickle and Aston sold a total of 645 of these wedge-profiled saloons all the way up to 1990.
Buick Reatta (1988)
The Reatta was a bold attempt by General Motors to inject some chic into the Buick brand with a sporty two-door, two-seat coupe. It looked the part and should have been a success, helped by its Electronic Control Center touchscreen computer and digital dash display. However, production was over-complicated as it was hand-built in the dedicated Reatta Craft Center rather than on a normal production line.
GM even sent staff to the UK to see how small car companies such as Rolls-Royce made their vehicles. None of this added to the finished Reatta’s appeal to buyers nor its dynamic abilities. It certainly wasn’t a bad car, but the 3.8-litre V6 engine driving the front wheels was short on power and refinement to undermine the Buick’s positioning as a halo sports model. In the end, only 21,751 Reattas were built over four years.
