1896-2010

The Daimler Company Limited, before 1910 known as the Daimler Motor Company Limited, was an independent British motor vehicle manufacturer founded in London by H. J. Lawson in 1896, which set up its manufacturing base in Coventry. The company bought the right to the use of the Daimler name simultaneously from Gottlieb Daimler and Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft of Cannstatt, Germany.

1897

The first car left the works in January 1897, fitted with a Panhard engine, followed in March by Daimler-engined cars. The first Coventry Daimler-engined product made its maiden run in March 1897. By mid-year they were producing three of their own cars a week and producing Léon Bollée cars under licence. Lawson claimed to have made 20 cars by July 1897 making the Daimler Britain's first motor car to go into serial production, an honour that is also credited to Humber Motors who had also displayed, but in their case their production models, at the Stanley Cycle Show in London in 1896. The Daimlers had a twin-cylinder, 1526 cc engine, mounted at the front of the car, four-speed gearbox and chain drive to the rear wheels.

Known as Britain's oldest car manufacturers, Daimler was first associated with royalty in 1898 when the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, was given a ride on a Daimler by John Douglas-Scott-Montagu later known as Lord Montagu of Beaulieu. Scott-Montagu, as a member of parliament, also drove a Daimler into the yard of the Palace of Westminster, the first motorised vehicle to be driven there.

Daimler had sold the Prince of Wales a mail phaeton in early 1900. In 1902, upon buying another Daimler, King Edward VII awarded Daimler a royal warrant as suppliers of motor cars.

Every British monarch from Edward VII to Elizabeth II has been driven in Daimler limousines. In 1950, after a persistent transmission failure on the King's car, Rolls-Royce was commissioned to provide official state cars and as Daimlers retired they were not replaced by Daimlers. The current official state car is either one of a pair which were specially made for the purpose by Bentley, unofficial chauffeured transport is by Daimler. Elizabeth II's own car for personal use was a 2008 Daimler Super Eight but she was also seen to drive herself in other smaller cars.

Under BSA (1910–1960)

Under an agreement dated 22 September 1910 the shareholders of The Daimler Motor Company Limited "merged their holdings with those of the Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA) group of companies," receiving five BSA shares in exchange for four ordinary Daimler shares and £1 5s plus accrued dividend for each £1 preference share. This deal was engineered by Dudley Docker, deputy-chairman of BSA, who was famous for previous successful business mergers.

Daimler, a manufacturer of motor vehicles, had a payroll of 4,116 workmen and 418 staff immediately before the merger. BSA produced rifles, ammunition, military vehicles, bicycles, motorcycles and some BSA-branded cars. The chairman of the combined group was Edward Manville, who had been chairman of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders – founded by Simms – since 1907.

However the merger was not a great success. By 1913 Daimler had a workforce of 5000 workers which made only 1000 vehicles a year.

WWI

1916  R.E.8.

During World War I, the military took the normal production cars, lorries, buses and ambulances together with a scout army vehicle and engines used in ambulances, trucks, and double-decker buses. Special products included aero-engines and complete aircraft, tank and tractor engines and munitions.

The first aircraft engine manufactured by Daimler was the 80 hp Gnome Monosoupape rotary. With no drawings available to them, Daimler's Gnome engines were reverse-engineered from an engine delivered to them on 7 August 1914. 

Daimler later built the RAF 1 and 1a air-cooled V8s, the RAF 4 and 4a V12s, the Le Rhone rotary, and the Bentley BR2 rotary alongside other manufacturers. Production of RAF 4 engines gave Daimler experience in building V12 engines which would be appreciated when they later designed and built "Double-Six" V12 engines for their large cars.

Daimler trained air force mechanics at its works and its training methods became the standard for all manufacturers instructing RAF mechanics.

Having its own body shop, Daimler had the woodworking ability to build complete aircraft. By the end of 1914, they had built 100 units of the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2c. These were followed by the BE12 and RE8.

Daimler purchased an open field beside their Radford factory, cleared the site, and made it available to the Government, who turned it into the main RAF testing ground for aircraft built in the Coventry district. Although Daimler tooled up for production of the Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.4 bomber the aircraft was cancelled due to poor performance. The last wartime aircraft produced was the Airco DH.10 Amiens bomber when they were building 80 aeroplanes a month.

daimler double six 

1926-1930  daimler double six 50 sport corsica drophead coupe

The Daimler Double-Six sleeve-valve V12 was a piston engine manufactured by The Daimler Company Limited of Coventry, England between 1926 and 1938. It was offered in four different sizes for their flagship cars.

The same Daimler Double-Six name was used for the badge-engineered Daimler V12 engine used in the largest Daimlers between 1972 and 1997.

Daimler required an advanced new model to compete with Rolls-Royce's New Phantom of 1925. Though Packard had introduced its Twin-Six many years earlier it was to be a decade or more before luxury manufacturers like Rolls-Royce, Hispano-Suiza, Lincoln, Voisin and Lagonda made their own (and Packard returned to it). In fact by the mid-1930s flexible engine mountings and improved carburetion had made so many cylinders unnecessary. What did return them to a certain level of popularity was the push for higher performance requiring higher crankshaft speeds. Daimler introduced their first 26 hp straight-eight in mid-1934 and their last (poppet valve) V12s were built in 1937 or 1938.

Announced 15 October 1926 and observed by The Observer's motoring correspondent to be Britain's first twelve-cylinder car engine. It had a power output of 150 bhp at  2480 rpm.

1932 double six sport saloon

This 1932 Daimler Double Six 40/50 Sport Saloon is, without question, one of the most imposing automobiles ever constructed by the legendary British marque or any maker of exclusive luxury vehicles. While only 26 Double Sixes were built over a decade, the vast majority had a smaller displacement and short chassis. Among this rarified group, this 1932 Daimler Double Six stands out. It is a second-generation, long-wheelbase example of the Double Six fitted with the revised 40/50 engine that allows for a top speed in excess of 80 mph.

WWII

During WWII Daimler built more than 6600 Scout Cars and some 2700 Mk I and Mk II Armoured Cars. Daimler also provided tank components, including epicyclic gearboxes for 2.500 Crusader, Covenanter and Cavalier tanks. They built 74.000 Bren gun, initially at a workshop in their Coventry factory and, after the workshop was destroyed in the April 1941 raid, at a boot and shoe factory in Burton-on-Trent.

Instead of building complete aircraft as they had in World War I, Daimler built aircraft components, including 50.800 Bristol radial aero-engines—Mercury, Hercules and Pegasus—with full sets of parts for 9.500 more of these engines, propeller shafts for Rolls-Royce aero-engines, and 14.356 gun-turrets for bombers including their Browning machine guns. In all, Daimler produced more than 10 million aircraft parts during the war. All this production is Daimler's alone excluding BSA's other involvements.

Daimler's peak workforce, 16.000 people, was reached in this period.

de

Daimler DE was a series of chassis made by the Daimler Company from 1946 until 1953. DE chassis were the basis for Daimler's largest and most expensive cars at the time. There were two versions: the short-wheelbase DE 27 with the Daimler Twenty-seven straight-six engine, and the long-wheelbase DE 36, the last Daimler Straight-Eight, with the Thirty-six straight-eight engine. Daimler DEs, especially the DE 36 Straight-Eight, was sold to royalty and heads of state around the world, including British royalty under the royal warrant that Daimler had held since 1900.

regency

The Daimler Regency series was a luxury car made in Coventry by The Daimler Company Limited between 1951 and 1958. Only an estimated 49 examples of the 3-litre Regency chassis were made because demand for new cars collapsed just weeks after its introduction. Almost three years later in October 1954, a lengthened more powerful Regency Mark II (DF304) was announced but, in turn, after a production run of 345 cars, it was replaced by the very much faster, up-rated One-O-Four (DF310), announced in October 1955.

It was fitted with a new 3-litre 6 cylinder engine derived from the 4 cylinder 2-litre engine in the production Lanchester Fourteen. Twin SU carburettors were fitted to give 90 bhp at 4100 rpm.

The DF300 model designation was used for right-hand drive and DF301 for left-hand drive.

The revised Regency DF304 labelled Mark II was announced in October 1954. Left-hand-drive cars used the DF305 designation. The new more flowing body was slightly longer with a much longer boot and mudguards and was lower-set. It could now be purchased with a 3½-litre or 4½-litre engine. The British Motor magazine tested a 3468 cc Regency II saloon in 1955 recording a top speed of 133.3 km/h and acceleration from 0-100 km/h in 23 seconds

dk400

1954-1959

The Daimler DK400, originally Daimler Regina DF400, was a large luxury car made by The Daimler Company Limited between 1954 and 1959 replacing their Straight-Eight cars. Distinguished, after the Regina, by its hooded headlights it was Daimler's last car to use their fluid flywheel transmission.

The DK400 was the last of the larger of the old long-stroke straight six engines that had been traditional on Daimler's smaller cars since 1910 though production of the smaller 3.8-litre engine, modified to take Borg-Warner's automatic transmission, continued until 1962.

When introduced in 1954 the engine's output was 127 horsepower at 3600 rpm. In the autumn of 1955 the outputs of both the 3½-litre and 4½-litre engines were substantially increased, the 4½-litre to 167 horsepower at 3000 rpm. The standard wheelbase versions were re-designated DF402. The long wheelbase limousine remained designated DK400 but its name, Regina, was dropped as was the price of the complete standard-bodied limousine, by more than one-third. Modifications to the limousine's engine led to a similar output of 167 hp but at 3800 rpm.

The DK400 was the last new Daimler model to use the company's preselector gearbox with fluid flywheel transmission introduced in 1930.

majestic

The Daimler Majestic DF316/7 and DF318/9 luxury saloon was launched by the Daimler Company of Coventry in July 1958 and was in production until 1962. Edward Turner had been appointed Chief Executive of BSA Automotive in 1957 and promised new products, this car was to carry his new V8 engine still under development.

The six-cylinder, four-door saloon, with new three-speed Borg Warner automatic transmission, power steering and vacuum-servo assisted four-wheel disc brakes was mechanically up-to-date for its time, but it had a heavy coachbuilt body of outdated construction on a separate chassis which kept the car's mass well above more modern designs and made it difficult to manoeuvre, despite the modern steering. The styling was already becoming outdated when the car appeared and became increasingly dated as lighter cars with monocoque construction appeared during the Majestic's production run.

The engine  was an inline six of 3.8 litres, based on previous Daimler sixes with pushrod operated overhead valves and a power output of over 147 brake horsepower at 4400 rpm and produced 283 N⋅m of torque at 2800 rpm. The Majestic had a maximum speed of around 162 km/h.

mark IX

The Jaguar Mark IX is a four-door luxury saloon car announced 8 October 1958^[4] and produced by Jaguar Cars between 1958 and 1961. It was generally similar to the Mark VIII it replaced, but had a larger, more powerful 3.8 litre engine, 4-wheel disc brakes, and power assisted recirculating ball steering among its mechanical improvements.

Visually the early versions were identical in exterior appearance to the Mark VIII except for the addition of a chrome "Mk IX" badge to the boot lid. Later versions had a larger tail-lamp assembly with an amber section for traffic indication, visually similar to the tail-lights of the smaller Jaguar Mark 2.

It was replaced by the lower and more contemporary-styled Mark X in 1961.

The Mark IX was the first production Jaguar to offer four-wheel servo-assisted Dunlop disc brakes and recirculating ball power steering, which were now standard equipment.

A car with automatic transmission tested by the British magazine The Motor in 1958 had a top speed of 184.1 km/h and could accelerate from 0–100 km/h in 11.5 seconds.

In all, 10.009 Mark IX were produced.

sp250

The Daimler SP250 is a sports car built by the Daimler Company, a British manufacturer in Coventry, from 1959 to 1964. It was the last car to be launched by Daimler before its parent company, the Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA), sold it to Jaguar Cars in 1960.

The original version, later called the "A-spec", could reach a speed of 193 km/h, but the chassis, a "14-gauge ladder frame with cruciform bracing" based on the Triumph TR3, flexed so much that doors occasionally came open, marring its reputation.

The SP250 had a fibreglass body, four-wheel Girling disc brakes, and a 2.5-litre hemi-head V8 engine designed by Edward Turner. The car was described as a 2+2, but the bench-like rear seat offered very limited legroom unless the front seats were pushed fully forward.

The SP250 was launched as the Daimler Dart in April 1959 at the New York Motor Show, where it was unofficially voted as the ugliest car at the show. Chrysler, whose Dodge division owned the trademark for the "Dart" model name, ordered Daimler to change the name under threat of legal action. With little time to come up with a new name, Daimler used the project number, SP250, as the model number.

Owned by Jaguar Cars (1984–1989)

In May 1960, the Daimler business was purchased from BSA by Jaguar Cars for £3.4 million. William Lyons was looking to expand manufacture, wanted the manufacturing facilities and had to decide what to do with the existing Daimler vehicles.

Jaguar had been refused planning permission for a new factory in the area in which it wanted it to be. Daimler had shrunk to representing just 15% of BSA group turnover in 1959–1960 and BSA wished to dispose of its motoring interests. Jaguar stated publicly that it would continue production of the existing range of Daimler, that it would continue normal research and development for future Daimler products, and that it would expand Daimler markets in Britain and overseas.

mark X

The Jaguar Mark X (Mark Ten), later renamed the Jaguar 420G, was British manufacturer Jaguar's top-of-the-range saloon car for a decade, from 1961 to 1970. The large, luxurious Mark X not only succeeded the Mark IX as the company's top saloon model, but radically broke with both its predecessor's styling and technology.

From an industrial design viewpoint, the slab-sided but also somewhat fuselage shaped, Mark Ten was a hallmark car for Jaguar by introducing the upright, often slightly forward leaning front fascia and grille, flanked by prominent quad round headlights. When Jaguar replaced its entire saloon range with a single new model in the late 1960s – the resulting XJ6 of 1968 used the Mark Ten as a template – albeit with a reduced size.

Similar front grille and quad round headlight facias defined most of Jaguar's saloons for nearly half a century, until 2009 – the final year of both the 3rd generation XJ series, and of the Jaguar X-Type. Also, Jaguar did not build another car as large as the Mark Ten & 420G for the rest of the century, until the LWB version of the 2003 XJ Jaguars.

Introduced within a year of Jaguar's iconic E-Type sportscar, the Mark X impressed by copying much of the E-Type's technology, innovations and specification. Contrary to its predecessors, the car was modernised with integrated, unitary bodywork – the largest in the UK at the time – as well as with four-wheel disc brakes and Jaguar's independent rear suspension, unheard of for early 1960s British luxury cars. 

Combined with the 3.8-litre, triple carburettor engine as fitted to the E-type, it gave Jaguar's flagship a top speed of 193 km/h and capable handling at less than half the price of the contemporary Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud.

Owned by BMH (1966–1968)

The British Motor Corporation Limited (BMC) was a UK-based vehicle manufacturer formed in early 1952 to give effect to an agreed merger of the Morris and Austin businesses.

BMC acquired the shares in Morris Motors and the Austin Motor Company. Morris Motors, the holding company of the productive businesses of the Nuffield Organization, owned MG, Riley, and Wolseley.

The agreed exchange of shares in Morris or Austin for shares in the new holding company, BMC, became effective in mid-April 1952.

In September 1965, BMC took control of its major supplier of bodies, Pressed Steel, acquiring Jaguar's body supplier in the process. In September 1966, BMC merged with Jaguar Cars. In December 1966, BMC changed its name to British Motor Holdings Limited (BMH).

BMH merged, in May 1968, with Leyland Motor Corporation Limited, which made trucks and buses and owned both Standard-Triumph International Limited and the Rover Company to become British Leyland.

sovereign

Daimler Sovereign was a name applied by British manufacturer Jaguar Cars to a sequence of luxury automobiles built by it but carrying the Daimler badge between 1966 and 1983.

The Daimler Sovereigns were based on contemporary Jaguar bodyshells, chassis and engines in an example of badge engineering. Jaguar Cars took over The Daimler Company in 1960 and the 1966 Sovereign was the second Daimler to be based on a Jaguar model. The first was the 2½ litre V8 with an engine designed by Edward Turner. Unlike the Daimler 2½ litre, the Sovereign had a Jaguar engine, marking the end for the Turner designed engines.

The first Daimler Sovereign was based on the 1966 Jaguar 420 and is sometimes referred to as the "Sovereign 420". Subsequent Sovereigns were derived from the Series I, II and III Jaguar XJ6. In 1983 the model name "Sovereign" was switched to the high specification version of the Series III Jaguar XJ6, the 6-cylinder Daimler based on it simply continuing without a model name.

The V12 versions of the Daimler, available from 1972 to 1997, were named Daimler Double-Six after the original Daimler V12s.

Owned by British Leyland (1968–1984)

British Leyland was a British automotive engineering and manufacturing conglomerate formed in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC), following the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings. It was partly nationalised in 1975, when the UK government created a holding company called British Leyland, later renamed BL in 1978. It incorporated much of the British-owned motor vehicle industry, which in 1968 had a 40% share of the UK car market, with its history going back to 1895. Despite containing profitable marques such as Jaguar, Rover, and Land Rover, as well as the best-selling Mini, BLMC had a troubled history, leading to its eventual collapse in 1975 and subsequent part-nationalisation.

ds420

The Daimler DS420, also known as the Daimler Limousine, is a limousine made by the Daimler Company between 1968 and 1992. The car was designed for official use and it was popular with chauffeur services, hoteliers and undertakers. It was used as an official state car in many countries. No other limousine model has been delivered to more reigning monarchs than the DS420, and the car is still used by the royal houses of the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, and Luxembourg.

The Daimler Company was purchased by Jaguar Cars in 1960, which itself was bought by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) in 1966 and became part of the larger British Leyland conglomerate in 1968. BMC and Jaguar each had their own limousines before merging operations: the Vanden Plas Princess and the Daimler DR450, respectively. Rather than build two competing products, they decided to consolidate limousine production to a single model under the Daimler marque. Most of the engineering of the DS420 would be carried out by Jaguar, the new model to share parts such as the engine, gearbox, and suspension with the Jaguar 420G. Production of the DS420 was announced in June 1968, with the cars being built at the Vanden Plas works in Kingsbury. The short designation DS420 was in accordance with earlier Daimler designations where the first letter stood for Daimler, the second letter was part of an alphabetical sequence (i.e. the predecessor was "DR", thus the successor was "DS"), and "420" referred to the 4.2-litre displacement of the XK engine.

In comparison to a Rolls-Royce Phantom VI, the DS420's wheelbase was 10 cm shorter, its body 30 cm shorter, it was approximately 350 kilograms lighter, and its engine had only about two-thirds the displacement of the Rolls-Royce V8. As such, the Daimler was less expensive than a Rolls-Royce, less than half the price of a standard long-wheelbase (Silver Wraith) Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow.

The last DS420, registered L420 YAC, was built in Browns Lane towards the end of 1992 and is the last production car built to have an XK engine installed. This is in the care of the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust. No direct replacement was produced by Jaguar, although coach builders have adapted the Daimler version of the XJ6.

Owned by Jaguar Cars (1984–1989)

If Jaguar was not to follow Daimler into becoming just another once iconic brand it needed immense amounts of capital to develop new models and build and equip new factories. This was beyond the ability of the BMH—now British Leyland—Group. It was decided to market the Jaguar business by first obtaining a separate London Stock Exchange listing to fix a price then ensuring any successful bid for all the listed shares in the whole business would be from a bidder with, or with access to, the necessary capital. That bidder proved to be Ford.

Owned by Ford (1989–2007)

Ford Motor Company paid £1.6 billion to buy Jaguar in 1989 and with it the right to use the Daimler name. In 1992, Daimler (Ford) stopped production of the DS420 Limousine, the only model that was a little more than just a rebadged Jaguar.

When Ford bought Jaguar in 1990, the British press showed a coloured computer-generated image of a proposed 'new' Daimler car – not merely a rebadged Jaguar XJ. At least one related project has been documented.

Daimler remained the flagship Jaguar product in every country except the US, where the top Jaguar is known as the "XJ Vanden Plas" – Jaguar may have feared that the American market would confuse Jaguar Daimler with Daimler AG.

super eight

After a three-year break a new Daimler, the Super Eight, was presented in July 2005. It had a new stressed aluminium monocoque/chassis-body with a 4.2 L V8 supercharged engine which produced 390 bhp and a torque rating of 533 N⋅m at 3500 rpm. This car was derived from the Jaguar XJ (X350).

The supercharged 4.2 litre V8 allows the Daimler to accelerate to 100km/h in just 5.3 seconds and continue on to an electronically limited top speed of 250km/h.

Owned by Tata (2007–present)

At the end of 2007 (the formal announcement was delayed until 25 March 2008), it became generally known that India's Tata Group had completed arrangements to purchase Jaguar (including Daimler) and Land Rover.

Tata had spoken to the press of plans to properly relaunch England's oldest car marque. In July 2008 Tata Group, the current owners of Jaguar and Daimler, announced they were considering transforming Daimler into "a super-luxury marque to compete directly with ultra luxury companies like Bentley and Rolls-Royce".

The Daimler Company Limited, now The Daimler Motor Company Limited, is still registered as active and accounts are filed each year though it is currently marked "non-trading". Until 20 December 1988 its name was The Daimler Company Limited.

In 2009, Jaguar lost the right to trademark the Daimler name in the United States.