Frank Gerald Feeley, born in

Staines-upon-Thames Staines-upon-Thames is a market town in northwest Surrey, England, around west of central London. It is in the Borough of Spelthorne, at the confluence of the River Thames and Colne. Historically part of Middlesex, the town was transferre ...

on 16 January 1912, was an automotive stylist and designer. He joined

Lagonda Lagonda is a British luxury car brand established in 1906, which has been owned by Aston Martin since 1947. The trade-name has not had a continuous commercial existence, being dormant several times, most recently from 1995 to 2008 and 2010 to 2 ...

based in Staines, where his father, Jeremiah Feeley, also worked, straight from school as an office boy under Arthur Thatcher, the assistant works manager responsible for coachbuilding. He went on to work for Walter Buckingham who was in charge of body design and when the

Lagonda Rapier The Lagonda Rapier was a small car produced by the British Lagonda company from 1934 to 1935. A few more were subsequently produced by the independent Rapier Car Company. At the heart of the car was an all new 1104 cc twin overhead camshaft four ...

was introduced in 1933 Feeley designed a four-seat tourer body for the demonstrator. In the mid 1930s Lagonda got into financial difficulties. The receiver was called in and Feeley left to join coachbuilding company Newns based in

Thames Ditton Thames Ditton is a suburban village on the River Thames, in the Elmbridge borough of Surrey, England. Apart from a large inhabited island in the river, it lies on the southern bank, centred 12.2 miles (19.6 km) southwest of Charing Cro ...

. His first job at Eagle coachworks, the trading name used by Newns, was to design a special body for

Sir Malcolm Campbell Major Sir Malcolm Campbell (11 March 1885 – 31 December 1948) was a British racing motorist and motoring journalist. He gained the world speed record on land and on water at various times, using vehicles called ''Blue Bird'', including a ...

's tuned Rapier. Meanwhile, Lagonda was rescued from receivership and in 1937 Feeley returned to work there as body designer. At first he was employed updating existing models but in 1937 he produced a complete new design for the LG45 Rapide and the Lagonda V12 and shown at the 1939 New York Motor Show where it was described as: "The highest price car in the show this year is tagged $8,900. It is a Lagonda, known as the 'Rapide' model, imported from England. The power plant is a twelve-cylinder V engine developing 200 horsepower." When Lagonda was acquired by David Brown in 1947, Frank Feeley along with the rest of the Lagonda design team began to work for David Brown's

Aston Martin Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC is an English manufacturer of luxury sports cars and grand tourers. Its predecessor was founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford. Steered from 1947 by David Brown, it became associated ...

. His first project at Aston Martin was the new DB1. He went on to design the 1949 Le Mans racer which would utilise the recently acquired

Lagonda 2.6-Litre The Lagonda 2.6-Litre was an automobile produced in England by Lagonda from 1948 to 1953. It was the first model from that company following its purchase by David Brown in 1947, and was named for the new straight-6 engine which debuted with ...

engine, and which would evolve into the

DB2 Db2 is a family of data management products, including database servers, developed by IBM. It initially supported the relational model, but was extended to support object–relational features and non-relational structures like JSON and ...

. Frank Feeley remained Aston Martin's in house designer up until 1956 when the company moved operations to

Newport Pagnell Newport Pagnell is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The Office for National Statistics records Newport Pagnell as part of the Milton Keynes urban area. It is separated ...

and Frank was unable to move with them. He went on to work in the aircraft industry and continued to live in Staines until his death in August 1985.

References

British automobile designers Year of death missing People from Staines-upon-Thames {{Design-bio-stub