Back in the late 70s and 80s, Aston Martin made a terrible mistake in a modern interpretation of the Aston Martin Lagonda from 1976-1989. It was the first modern Aston Martin.  It followed the unfortunate trend in the 70s and 80s when European car makers tried to become more like American muscle cars and tried to appeal to the need of the power brokers of the 80s who wanted bigger, faster, shinier, and more powerful emblems for their wealth.  The Lamborghini Countach, the Lamborghini LM002, the Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer, and this model of Porsche 911 are prime examples.

Well, according to Jalopnik, Aston Martin plans to revive the brand:

As rumored, Aston Martin is readying the Lagonda nameplate for an all-newGeneva Motor Show concept. The secret concept, previewing a new brand, is said to be a perfect blend of practicality and performance.

Lagonda was founded in 1906, but was purchased and integrated by Aston Martin in 1947. The Lagonda name has been affixed to Aston Martins since then, and graced the quirky 80s-era Aston Martin Lagonda, but has never been its own brand. According to Aston Martin, the Lagonda nameplate is preparing to celebrate its 100th anniversary next year (no, that makes no sense to us either) and to commemorate the occasion, an all-new concept will debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March.

There’s no telling what this concept could be other than a competitor in the luxury car market filled with Bentleys and Rolls Royces, but Aston Martin is already talking about a production schedule for a 2012 on-sale date. We’ll keep our eyes peeled.

Aston Martin Press Release:

Aston Martin CEO confirms the revival of the Lagonda MarqueAston Martin Chief Executive Officer Dr Ulrich Bez has today confirmed his intention to revive the Lagonda marque.

In a statement today he said, “After my eight years with Aston Martin, four with profitability, and 16 months of independence, it’s time to think about a longer term future. Aston Martin is an honest, authentic brand which builds the most beautiful sportscars combining modern technology with craftsmanship. Next year we will launch the four door Rapide sportscar, and this will be followed by the project ‘one 77′, the most spectacular Aston Martin ever. Aston Martins are currently available in 32 countries but we will remain limited in our market penetration by the pure character of our cars – sportscars.

“We have now investigated and concluded that the revival of the Lagonda brand would allow us to develop cars which can have a different character than a sportscar, and therefore offer a perfect synergy. Lagonda will use a unique design language as Aston Martin does. We will take elements of DNA from the past but will be very future orientated as we are with Aston Martin. With Lagonda offering exclusive, luxurious and truly versatile products with high quality and usability and suitable for both existing and emerging markets, I believe we can be present in more than 100 countries in the world.

“In 2009 Lagonda is about to celebrate its 100th birthday and in its centenary year we are confident that we will show the first concept of a car which could be in the market in 2012,” he confirmed.

I guess this is what another model year of the Aston Martin Lagonda looked like:

“Abraham & Harrison has been a critical catalyst for the online debut of SURVIVOR CORPS. They helped us create a blogging buzz around the launch of Survivor Corps, offering savvy counsel on strategically targeted audiences who would resonate with our mission. A&H cleverly leveraged the release of my book — I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis — to generate word of mouth promotion online and cultivate new supporters for our work to help survivors of war in the United States and abroad. Abraham & Harrison will jump into a campaign with passion and panache. They’ve been responsive to our needs and a pleasure to work with from day one.” — Jerry White, Co-Founder and Director, Survivor Corps

Career
After Fey graduated from drama school at the University of Virginia in 1992, she moved to Chicago, getting a day job at a residential YMCA to take night classes at The Second City. She made what she later described as an “amateurish” attempt at stand-up comedy, and learned that the key to improvisation was to “focus entirely on your partner. You take what they’re giving you and use it to build a scene.”

By 1994 she was invited to join the cast of The Second City, where she performed in the Jeff Award-winning revue Paradigm Lost. She is also a veteran of The ImprovOlympic.

Saturday Night Live

With then-head writer Adam McKay’s help, Fey became a writer for NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL) in 1997. By 1999, Fey was SNL’s first female head writer, a milestone she downplays by pointing out that the show has had few head writers.

As co-head writer of SNL’s 25th anniversary special, Fey won a 2001 Writers Guild of America Award; she and the writing staff also won a 2002 Emmy Award for their work on the show.

In September 2005, she went on maternity leave after giving birth to a daughter, Alice Zenobia Richmond. Her Weekend Update role was covered by Horatio Sanz for several weeks before her return to the show on October 22, 2005, noting:

“I had to get back to work. NBC has me under contract; the baby and I only have a verbal agreement.”
Fey confirmed during a July 2006 Tonight Show appearance that she would not be returning to SNL for its 2006-7 season.

SNL sketches
Some recurring sketches written by Fey include:

Parodies of Live with Regis and Kelly and The View
The Girl with No Gaydar, cowritten by Rachel Dratch
Boston Teens, cowritten by Dratch

She is also credited with:

Colonel Angus, portrayed by Christopher Walken in a sketch filled with word play on the colonel’s name
Mom Jeans commercial
“Talkin ‘Bout ‘Ginas” (Parody of The Vagina Monologues)

Weekend Update
In 2000, Fey and Jimmy Fallon became co-anchors of SNL’s Weekend Update, a pairing that ended in May 2004 when Fallon last appeared as a cast member. (Fey also was co-writer of the Weekend Update segment). Fallon was replaced by Amy Poehler. It was the first time that two women co-anchored Weekend Update.

Celebrity impressions
Barbara Pierce Bush
Bea Arthur
Janice Dickinson
Kathleen Willey
Mary Ann Mobley
Paris Hilton
Paula Zahn
Vanna White

30 Rock
Fey developed a situation comedy, 30 Rock, for NBC’s fall 2006 schedule.. The show is produced by NBC and Broadway Video, with Lorne Michaels and two former producers of The Tracy Morgan Show, David Miner, who is also her manager at 3 Arts, and Joann Alfano. She also writes and stars in the sitcom, said to be based on her experiences at SNL. The show’s title is a reference to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where SNL is produced.

Similarities between 30 Rock and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip led to speculation that only one of the two shows would be picked up. Alec Baldwin, who played the network executive in the 30 Rock pilot, said “I’d be stunned if NBC picked up both shows. And ours has the tougher task, as a comedy, because if it’s not funny, that’s it.” Kevin Reilly, the president of NBC Entertainment, was supportive of Fey, describing it as a “high-class problem”:

I just can’t imagine the audience would look at both shows, choose one and cancel the other out. In some ways, why is it any different than when there have been three or four cop shows on any schedule, or Scrubs and ER, which are totally very different?

Evidence of the overlapping subject matter between the shows (as well as the conflict between them) is the fact that Aaron Sorkin, the creator of Studio 60, asked Lorne Michaels to allow him to observe SNL for a week, a request Michaels denied.

It’s just bad luck for me that in my first attempt at prime time I’m going up against the most powerful writer on television. I was joking that this would be the best pilot ever aired on Trio. And then Trio got cancelled.

In spite of the overlap in subject matter, it was announced on May 15, 2006, that NBC had picked up both shows.

The show debuted to mostly positive reviews, however ratings its original timeslot on Wednesdays at 8 PM were weak. Rather than cancel the show, NBC moved the show into a revamped Thursday Must See TV comedy lineup at the end of November sweeps. After its first episode in its new Thursday 9:30 PM timeslot on November 30, 2006, the network picked up the show for the entire season

Other work
She partnered with fellow cast member Rachel Dratch in the critically acclaimed two-woman show Dratch & Fey at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York City, the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, and the Chicago Improv Festival. Lorne Michaels saw her at one of the performances, which led to her becoming the co-anchor of SNL’s Weekend Update.

She also appeared in Martin & Orloff, a surreal comedy which premiered at Austin’s SXSW.

Fey wrote the script and co-starred in the 2004 movie Mean Girls. Characters and behaviors in the movie are based on Fey’s high school life at Upper Darby High School and on the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence (ISBN 0-609-60945-9) by Rosalind Wiseman. The cast includes other present and past cast members of SNL including Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer, and Amy Poehler.

As of April 2006, Fey is working on a script for a Paramount Pictures film by the name of Curly Oxide and Vic Thrill that is said to be based loosely on the true story of a Hasidic rock musician.

Personal life
Fey was born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia to a Greek American mother and a father of German and Scottish descent. Her brother, Peter, remembers a drawing she did when she was about seven: it showed people holding hands, walking down the street with wedges of Swiss cheese. The caption read, “What a friend we have in cheeses!”

Fey was exposed to comedy early, saying:

“I remember my parents sneaking me in to see Young Frankenstein. We would also watch Saturday Night Live, or Monty Python or old Marx Brothers movies. My dad would let us stay up late to watch The Honeymooners. We were not allowed to watch The Flintstones, though, which my dad hated because it ripped off The Honeymooners. I actually have a very low level of Flintstones knowledge for someone my age.”

Her dream to entertain first was at Philadelphia Phillies baseball games, as she wanted to become a ball girl.

Fey attended Cardington Elementary School and Beverly Hills Middle School; by middle school she knew she was interested in comedy, even doing an independent study project on the subject in eighth grade. She graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1988.

Tina Fey is married to Jeff Richmond, a composer on SNL. They met before their jobs on SNL and dated for seven years before marrying in a Greek Orthodox ceremony on June 3, 2001 . They have a daughter, Alice Zenobia Richmond who was born on September 10, 2005.