Ken Hill reunited with classic Lagonda he owned for 50 years

He never thought their paths would cross again after he sold it for a whopping £41,000 five decades later.

But retired journalist Ken Hill caught up briefly with his four-wheeled friend, a 1932 Lagonda 16/80, when it came up for auction last month.

Ken Hill with the Lagonda shortly before he sold it in 2011 (Image: Matthew Usher)

The car before its recent sale - to just its third owner since 1961 (Image: H&H Classics)

The Lagonda's gleaming engine (Image: H&H Classics)

Inside the Lagonda (Image: H&H Classics)

The car was described as "rare and desirable", had had just two owners since 1961, and came with a service history dating back to 1949.

It fetched £33,188 when it went under the hammer in an H&H Classics sale at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, near Cambridge.

Mr Hill, 89, went to view the car, which had previously been kept in the downstairs stables of a former feed mill near the Custom House he bought with his late wife Jean for £5,300 in 1975.

Ken and Jean Hill with the Lagonda after they bought their home in King's Lynn in 1975 (Image: Supplied by Ken Hill)

The Lagonda on a family picnic in the 1970s (Image: Ken Hill)

The couple converted the property into a spacious home for their then young family.

Two years after his wife passed away, in 2009, Mr Hill decided it was time to let the Lagonda go.

“My relationship with the car was coming to an end and I thought it would be nice to make some money," he said.

The Lagonda in Ken Hill's garage shortly before he sold it in 2011 (Image: Newsquest)

"I found somebody who wanted that particular model and in a pretty original condition.

"In my favour was the fact that I had never restored it, just kept it running." 

Along with pictures of the car, he still has a spare radiator surround in his waterfront home.

Ken Hill at his home with a spare radiator surround for the Lagonda (Image: Chris Bishop)

But was he tempted to buy the rest of it back when he saw its gleaming body work for the first time in a decade?

"I’ve recently given up driving," he said. "Who knows whether I wouldn’t suddenly forget that on Lagondas, the accelerator is the middle pedal. Or revert to the old habits when driving a modern car."