Daimler: The Queen Mother's Favourite Getaway Car
If you wanted to be a rockstar in the 1960s, you bought an Aston Martin. If you were a thrusting young businessman, you bought a Jaguar. But if you were the actual, literal Queen Mother, you had a Daimler. For the best part of a century, Daimler wasn't just a car company; it was a Royal Warrant on wheels, the official, state-sanctioned provider of silent, stately, and deeply conservative transport for the British establishment. A Daimler was a car that never shouted, never hurried, and was always, always, impeccably behaved. It was the automotive equivalent of a well-trained butler, and for a time, it was one of the finest car makers in the world.
The company's origins are a bit complicated, having started in 1896 as the British licensee for the German Daimler brand. But it quickly became a thoroughly British institution. The key moment came in 1897 when the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, had a ride in one. He was so impressed that when he became King, he granted Daimler a Royal Warrant, and the company became the official supplier of cars to the monarchy. This was the ultimate seal of approval. For the next fifty years, if you were a King, a Queen, a Duke, or a visiting maharajah, your car of choice had a fluted grille and a Daimler badge.
The Age of Silent Efficiency
In its pre-war and early post-war heyday, Daimler was a genuine engineering powerhouse. It was not a company interested in headline-grabbing top speeds or flashy styling. Its obsession was with silence, refinement, and mechanical perfection. They pioneered the "Fluid Flywheel" pre-selector gearbox, a fiendishly clever and complicated device that allowed for impossibly smooth gearchanges at a time when other cars had gearboxes that felt like stirring a bucket of nails.
The cars themselves were vast, imposing, and built with a quality that was second to none. They were magnificent, black-painted leviathans, often with bespoke coachwork from firms like Hooper or Barker. To ride in a Daimler of this period was to experience a level of mechanical silence and isolation that was almost surreal. This was the company at its peak: confident, aristocratic, and the undisputed king of British luxury.
A Flash of Uncharacteristic Madness
And then, in 1959, this most sensible and conservative of companies did something completely and wonderfully mad. It launched a two-seater sports car. The Daimler SP250, known unofficially as the "Dart," was a bizarre, fibreglass-bodied machine with a face that, charitably, could be described as fish-like. It was gawky and strange, and traditional Daimler owners were probably horrified. But under its odd-looking bonnet, it had a secret weapon: one of the greatest engines ever made.
It was a small, jewel-like 2.5-litre V8, designed by a man named Edward Turner. It was light, powerful, and made a glorious, snarling noise that was completely at odds with Daimler’s silent, stately image. The SP250, despite its weird looks, was seriously quick. The police even bought them as high-speed pursuit cars. For a brief, shining moment, Daimler had produced a proper, hairy-chested sports car.
The Cat Devours the Canary
The brilliant little V8 engine attracted the attention of a man who knew a thing or two about engines: Sir William Lyons, the boss of Jaguar. Lyons needed a bigger factory, and in 1960, he bought the entire Daimler company. It was a shrewd business move, but it was the beginning of the end for Daimler as a genuine, independent car maker. Jaguar had no interest in its rival's big, expensive saloons. They just wanted the factory space, and that wonderful V8 engine.
For a while, the two brands co-existed. The SP250 was killed off, but its magnificent V8 engine was transplanted into the Jaguar Mark 2 saloon, creating the Daimler 2.5 V8, arguably the best car of the whole family. But as the 1960s wore on, the rot of badge engineering set in. A Daimler slowly but surely became just a top-of-the-range Jaguar with a fluted grille, a different badge, and a slightly higher price tag.
The Long Goodbye of the Limousine
The one area where the Daimler name retained its own distinct identity was in the world of the state limousine. The colossal Daimler DS420, launched in 1968, was the last "true" Daimler, in spirit if not in engineering. This was a gigantic, formal limousine, the car of mayors, ambassadors, and, most famously, the Queen Mother. It was the car you saw gliding silently through the streets of London on state occasions, a rolling piece of British pageantry. The DS420 was built, almost unchanged, for an astonishing 24 years, finally ending production in 1992. It was the final, dignified bow of a once-great name.
After the limousine's demise, the Daimler name existed only as a badge. The top-spec Jaguar XJ saloon was sold as the "Daimler Double-Six" for a few years, but it was just a branding exercise. When Jaguar was bought by Ford, and later by Tata, the rights to the Daimler name were included in the sale, but the will to use it was gone. The last car to wear the badge was sold in 2007.
The story of Daimler is a quiet one. It's a tale of immense quality and royal patronage, of silent, brilliant engineering, and of a slow, gentle decline into obscurity. It wasn't killed off in a dramatic corporate battle; it was simply absorbed by a rival and allowed to fade away gracefully. It was a very dignified, very conservative, and very, very Daimler way to go.