Why 86-year-old car collector with 450 motors bought 24 of the same car

British businessman Rodger Dudding is an avid car collector – and that’s putting it mildly because the 86-year-old has amassed a collection of almost 500 cars. 

Yep, whereas your standard car collection may contain around 10, 20, or 30 cars; Dudding is the proud owner of  Studio434 – which he thinks could be Europe’s largest private car collection. 

With a conservative estimate of $51.1 million (£40m), Dudding’s collection contains cars, motorcycles and automotive memorabilia.

READ MORE! Rick Ross has challenged the internet to find a better car collection than his

The Studio434 website explains: “Over 100 years of motoring is represented here, starting with a stately 1911 Vulcan 15.9hp tourer with dicky seat right up to a 2017 Rolls Royce Wraith – the most powerful car in Rolls Royce history.” Nice.

According to motoringreasearch.com, at his last count, collector Dudding had almost 500 cars spread across his vast London-based warehouses and lockups. 

However, what makes Dudding’s already impressive collection even more special is the fact that he owns 24 Aston Martin Lagondas – the largest collection of that particular car in the world.

During its production run between 1979 and 1990, Aston Martin built 645 Lagondas – meaning Dudding now owns just shy of four percent of them all. 

Although Dudding is clearly a fan, the Lagonda had a bit of a polarizing effect with car fans – so much so, that Bloomberg Businessweek named it as one of the ‘ugliest cars’ of the last 50 years; while Time magazine added it to its ‘50 Worst Cars of All Time’ list. Ouch. 

Dudding isn’t blind to the car’s faults, either, the car collector told Autocar in 2018: “They were plagued with electronic problems.

‘Never get out with the keys left in the ignition.

“If you take the dashboard out you’ll see festoons of wiring and circuit boards.”

Despite this, Dudding believes that the cars helped to save Aston Martin. 

“Without this car, Aston Martin would have gone bust,” he told The Intercooler. 

“Yet it’s been whitewashed from history. They’re quite temperamental but very relaxing to drive. And they have so much presence. In London, it literally stops traffic.”

I’ll bet it does.

He was also quick to praise the Lagonda designer William Towns. 

Dudding added: “I met William Towns. What I liked was the originality of his thinking – it was such a bold step. 

“Towns wanted to change the norm. It’s still dramatic and controversial today, and remembered well.

“Controversy is not always bad. Brave is the word, but then we say brave new world.”