The Lagonda V12 was produced by the British Lagonda company from 1938 until 1940. It featured an all new 4480 cc 60 degree V12 engine designed by W. O. Bentley. Each bank of six cylinders has its own single overhead camshaft, chain driven, and its own distributor driven from the back of the camshaft. Twin downdraught SU carburettors are located between the engine blocks. 180 hp is developed at 5000rpm. Coachwork could be by Lagonda or a number of independent coachbuilders and to suit various body designs, even with a saloon body the car could reach 100 mph. Two modified V12s with four carburettor engines were entered for the 1939 24 Hours of Le Mans where they finished third and fourth.

The Lagonda V12 featured prominently in Roald Dahl's adult books My Uncle Oswald and the short story The Visitor. In the stories Dahl discusses taking delivery of a 1938 Lagonda with custom coachwork and a set of horns that play Mozart's "son gia mille e tre" in perfect pitch and seats "upholstered in fine-grain alligator and the panelling to be veneered in yew... because I prefer the colour and grain of English yew to that of any other wood".

Matchbox made their car from 1972 to 1985 in the four colours shown below. There are just so many of these that values are negligible. You may find references to a purple and gold version being worth well into four figures. This is an early pre-production prototype and it is not the colour which makes it rare but the detail around the back end of the baseplate and the rear bumper, the rare one has a marginally shorter baseplate and lacks strengthening lugs on the bottom of the bumper. There are other harder to find versions where the body and interior colour combinations differ from those shown below. In any case the state of the market for Models of Yesteryear currently makes it very unlikely that the high prices once achieved for rare versions can be got today.