- This article is about the British automobile
manufacturer. See Daimler for other
uses derived from the German engineer and inventor Gottlieb Daimler. For the two
direct descendants of Daimler's original company, see Daimler-Benz and its successor Daimler AG.
The
Daimler Motor Company was a British
motor vehicle manufacturing company, founded in
1896, and based in Coventry
. The
company became a subsidiary of
BSA in 1910, and was acquired by
Jaguar Cars in 1960.
Ownership of the
Daimler marque stayed with Jaguar Cars
through subsequent mergers with
British Motor Holdings and
British Leyland, remaining with Jaguar when
the company regained its independence in 1984. In 1989 the
Daimler badge transferred to the ownership of the
Ford Motor Company when Jaguar Cars
became a subsidiary of the American giant, and was subsequently
incorporated into Ford's
Premier Automotive Group. In March
2008 the
Daimler brand was included in Ford's sale of
Jaguar Land Rover to
Tata Motors of India.
As of 2006, the use of the
Daimler brand was limited to
one model, the
Daimler Super Eight.
Origins of the name
Confusingly, the name
Daimler is used by two completely
separate groups of
car manufacturer.
The
history of both companies can be traced back to the German
engineer
Gottlieb Daimler who built the
first four-wheeled car in 1889. This was the origin of the
Daimler Motoren
Gesellschaft (translation - Daimler Motor Company) which built
cars from the 1890s onwards. Gottlieb Daimler died in 1900, having
sold licences to use the Daimler name in a number of countries. The
licence granted in 1891 to the British F R Simms & Co included
the right to use the Daimler name in Great Britain and in 1896 the
British Daimler Motor Company was founded. The aristocrat car
dealer
Emil Jellinek had legal
problems selling German Daimlers in France and put it to Daimler
Germany that he would place a large order if they would make a car
for him that would bear his daughter's name
Mercedes. Daimler
Germany now realised the problem of having sold licences to use the
Daimler name, and to avoid any further confusion and licensing
troubles, the name
Mercedes was
adopted in 1902 for all the cars built by
Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft
itself and the name
Daimler was last used for a
German-built car in 1908 but was kept for the cars built by the
British company.
In 1924, the
Daimler
Motoren Gesellschaft merged with
Karl
Benz's
Benz & Cie. to form
the
Daimler-Benz car company which
built
Mercedes-Benz cars and trucks
and agreed to remain together until 2000. In 1998 Daimler-Benz
merged with the
Chrysler
Corporation to form
DaimlerChrysler. During 2007,
DaimlerChrysler split itself again, to become the new
Chrysler LLC and a renamed
Daimler AG.
Through all of this, Ford - via their 1989 purchase of Jaguar -
assumed and retained the sole rights to sell automobiles under the
Daimler name. However, during 2007 it was revealed that Ford
intended to sell off the remaining British-derived portions of its
Premier Automotive Group
(consisting of both Land Rover and Jaguar holdings, which include
the Daimler franchise).
The new suitor in this plan was reported to
be Tata Motors of India
, though Ford
preferred to refer to Tata as the "preferred bidder" while
negotiations continued. The deal was then finalized in March
2008.
The
Austro-Daimler concern has
survived as
Steyr-Daimler-Puch,
despite being absorbed by General Dynamics in 2003.
History of the British company
Daimler TB 6-21 Drophead Coupé
1923
Daimler Double-Six Corsica
Coupe
Daimler BD 10 Saloon 1951
Daimler Consort Saloon 1951
Daimler Drophead Coupé 1951
Company origin
The
UK patent rights to the Gottlieb
Daimler's engine were purchased in 1891 by Frederick Simms, who produced them at his
company F R Simms & Co. In 1893 this was renamed the
"Daimler Motor Syndicate Ltd" and supplied engines to boat
builders. In 1895
Harry Lawson
bought the company for £35,000 and changed its name again to the
British Motor Syndicate, a company mainly trading in patents. In
order to capitalise on some of the patents he had bought, in 1896
he founded the "Daimler Motor Company" based in a disused cotton
mill he bought in Foleshill, Coventry. Here, from 1897, he built
Léon Bollée cars under licence as well as MC and Daimler cars. The
first Daimler left the works in January 1897, fitted with a Panhard
engine, followed in March by Daimler engined cars. The company
claimed to have made 20 cars by July making the Daimler Britain's
first motor car to go into serial production. These 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 marque, Daimler became the official
transportation of Royalty in 1898, after the Prince of Wales, later
Edward VII, was
given a ride on a Daimler by John Scott-Montagu, Lord Montagu of
Beaulieu.
The Royal House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha had, like
Daimler, also obtained their name from Germany, but changed
this to Windsor during World War I.
Scott-Montagu, as a Member of Parliament,
also drove a Daimler into the yard of the British Parliament
, the first motorized vehicle to be driven
there. Every British monarch from Edward VII to the current
Queen have been
driven in Daimler limousines although, in 1950, after a
transmission failure on the King's car,
Rolls-Royce was commissioned as the
Royal Primary Carriage, Daimler being reduced to 'second
fiddle'.
Since 1907, the fluted
radiator
grille has been the Daimler marque's distinguishing feature.
The company acquired a
Knight Engine
licence in 1908 to build
sleeve valve
engines for its automobiles.
BSA take-over
From 1910 it was part of
Birmingham Small Arms Company
(BSA) group of companies, producing military vehicles as well as
cars.
In addition to cars, Daimler produced engines for the very first
tanks ever built in 1914 ("
Little Willie" and "Big Willie"), a scout army
vehicle, engines used in aeroplanes, ambulances, trucks, and
double-decker buses. In late 1920s, it, together with
Associated Equipment
Company, formed the
Associated Daimler Company to
build commercial vehicles.
In 1930 Daimler, through BSA, took over
Lanchester Motor Company. Although
at first the marques produced separate ranges of cars with the
Daimler badge appearing mainly on the larger models, by the mid
1930s the two were increasingly sharing components leading to the
1936 Lanchester 18/Daimler Light 20 differing in little except trim
and grille. The Daimler range was exceptionally complex in the
1930s with cars using a variety of six and eight cylinder engines
with capacities from 1805 cc in the short lived 15 of 1934 to
the 4624 cc 4.5 litre of 1936.
During
World War II, Daimler production
was geared to military production. A four wheel drive
scout car with a 2.5 litre engine, along with
a larger
armoured car powered
by a 4.1 litre engine and armed with a
2pdr. were produced, both with six
cylinder power units. These military vehicles incorporated various
innovative features including all-round disc brakes.
The original Sandy
Lane plant, used as a government store, was destroyed by fire
during intensive enemy bombing of
Coventry, but there were by now 'shadow factories' elsewhere in the
city including one located at Brown's Lane, Allesey
, now itself destroyed, but which was for several
decades the principal Jaguar car
plant. After that war, Daimler produced the
Ferret armoured car, a military
reconnaissance vehicle based on the innovative 4.1 litre engined
armoured car thes had developed and built during the war, which has
been used by over 36 countries.
Daimler was a proponent of the
preselector gearbox. This was used in
passenger vehicles and military vehicles.
Sir Bernard Docker was the Managing
Director of BSA from early in WWII, and married
Lady Norah Collins in 1949. It was Lady
Norah's third marriage, and she had originally been a successful
dance hall hostess, already having married well twice, and already
wealthy in her own right. The Lady Norah took an interest in her
husband's companies and became a director of
Hooper, the coachbuilders.
Lady Docker could see that the Daimler cars, while popular with the
royal family, were in danger of becoming an anachronism in the
modern world. She took it upon herself to raise the company's
profile, but in an extravagant fashion, by encouraging Sir Bernard
to produce show cars.
The first was the "Golden Daimler", an opulent touring limousine,
in 1952, "Blue Clover, a two door sportsmans coupe, in 1953 the
"Silver Flash" based on the 3 litre Regency chassis, and in 1954
"Stardust, redolent of the "Gold Car", but based on the DK400
chassis.
At the same time Lady Norah earned a
reputation for having rather poor social graces when under the
influence, and she and Sir Bernard were investigated for failing to
correctly declare the amount of money taken out of the country on a
visit to a Monte
Carlo
casino. Norah ran up large bills, and
presented them to Daimler as business expenses, but some items were
disallowed by the Tax Office drawing further attention. The
publicity attached to this and other social episodes told on Sir
Bernard's standing, as some already thought the cars far too
opulent and perhaps a little vulgar for austere post-war Britain.
To compound Sir Bernard's difficulty, the royal family shifted
allegiance to
Rolls Royce.
In 1951
Jack Sangster had sold
Ariel and
Triumph to BSA, and joined their
board. The Docker Daimler era was soon to end. By 1956 Sangster was
voted in as the new Chairman, defeating Sir Bernard 6 to 3, and he
promptly made
Edward Turner head of
the automotive division. This then included Ariel, Triumph, and BSA
motorcycles, as well as Daimler and
Carbodies (London Taxicab manufacturers). Turner
then designed the
Daimler SP250 and
Majestic Major, with a
lightweight
hemi head Daimler 2.5 & 4.5 Litre V8
Engines. Under Sangster Daimler's vehicles became a little more
performance oriented.
Daimler struggled after the War, producing too many models with
short runs and limited production, and frequently selling too few
of each model, while Jaguar seemed to know what the public wanted
and expanded rapidly.
Daimler model 104
Daimler DB18 (1952)
Daimler SP250 (1960 example)
Some of the most significant vehicles produced by Daimler prior to
their acquisition by
Jaguar in 1960
were:
Jaguar and British Leyland
Daimler V8-250
Daimler DS420 Limousine
In 1960, the Daimler name was acquired by
Jaguar Cars.
William
Lyons was looking to expand manufacture, and wanted the
manufacturing facilities, but then had to decide what to do with
the existing Daimler vehicles.
The Daimler Majestic Major and the sporty
Dart, already in production, were continued
for a number of years, using the Daimler V8 engine. In 1961 Daimler
introduced the
DR450 , a limousine
version of its Majestic Major with a longer chassis and bodyshell
and higher roofline. It continued in production until the
DS420 arrived in 1968, by which time it had
sold almost as many as the "Major" saloon.
These were the last Daimler-badge cars not designed by
Jaguar.
It is said that Jaguar put a Daimler 4.5L V8 in a
Mark X, and it went better than the Jaguar
version. It is also said that when Jaguar ceased production of
Daimler designed vehicles, Lyons had all the spares bulldozed into
a pit.
The last car to have a Daimler engine was the
V8 250 which was essentially, apart from a
fluted grille, badges and drivetrain, a more luxurious Jaguar Mark
II.
Jaguar merged with the
British
Motor Corporation, the masters of
badge-engineering marques in 1966 to form
British Motor Holdings (BMH).
Not surprisingly, except for the
Daimler
DS420 Limousine introduced in 1968 and withdrawn from
production in 1992, subsequent vehicles were
badge-engineered Jaguars, but given a more
luxurious and upmarket finish. For example the
Daimler Double-Six was a
Jaguar XJ-12 with the Daimler badge and fluted
grille and boot handle being the only outward differences from the
Jaguar, with more luxurious interior fittings and extra standard
equipment marking it out on the inside.
1972 Daimler Sovereign 4.2 (XJ6 Series
1)
During that period, Daimler became the second-largest (after
Leyland)
double-decker bus
manufacturer in Britain, with the "Fleetline" model. At the same
time, Daimler made trucks and motorhomes.
BMH merged with the
Leyland
Motor Corporation to give the
British Leyland Motor
Corporation in 1968.
Production of Daimler buses in Coventry
ceased in 1973 when production of its last bus product (the
Daimler Fleetline) was transferred
to Leyland plant in Farington
. The Daimler marque stayed within BLMC and
its subsequent forms until 1982, at which point Jaguar (and
Daimler) was demerged from BL as an independent manufacturer.
Significant Daimler models for that period include:
1988 Daimler Double Six
Daimler buses
A significant element of Daimler production was bus chassis, mostly
for double deckers. These were developed after World War 1, and
Daimler entered into a short joint venture with AEC in the early
1920s, vehicles being badged as Associated Daimler. In the 1930s
the Daimler COG became the main model, and in postwar years
production worked through the Daimler CVG to the long-running
Daimler CRG
Fleetline, built from 1960 to
1980 (CVG5 and CVG6 had been a common type of bus in Hong Kong
between 1950 to 1988 and Fleetline had also become a major type of
bus in Hong Kong till 1995). Small numbers of single deck vehicles
were also built. Many British bus operators bought substantial
numbers of the vehicles and there were also a number built for
export. The standard London
double deck
bus bought from 1970 to 1978 was the Daimler Fleetline. Daimler
buses were fitted with proprietary diesel engines, the majority by
the
Gardner company, although there were a
few Daimler diesels built in the 1950s, and the Leyland 680 was
offered as an option on the Fleetline (designated CRL) after the
merger with Leyland. The bus chassis were also fitted with bodywork
built by various outside contractors, as standard in the British
bus industry, so at a casual glance there is no real identifing
feature of a Daimler bus apart from the badges. The last Daimler
Fleetline was built at the traditional Daimler factory in Radford,
Coventry, in 1973, after that date the remaining buses were built
at the Leyland factory in Lancashire, the final couple of years of
Fleetline production being badged as Leyland.
Jaguar (Under Ford ownership)
In 1989 the
Ford Motor Company
took over Jaguar and with it the right to use the Daimler name. In
1992, Daimler stopped production of the DS420 Limousine, the only
model that was not just a re-badged Jaguar. In 1996 Jaguar Cars
produced a "Daimler Century" model to celebrate 100 years of
motoring.
The name Daimler continued to be used to determine top-line XJ
Jaguars in every country except the USA, where the top XJ is known
as the "XJ Vanden Plas" — the company may have feared that the
American market would confuse Jaguar Daimler with
DaimlerChrysler.
In 2002, with the arrival of the new Mark III XJ, the Daimler name
(seen on the Mark II XJ as the "Daimler V8") ceased to be used to
mark out the top models, with the "Jaguar Super V8" the new
flagship model. However, the Daimler marque was brought back with
the "Super Eight" model.
Significant Daimler Models for that period include:
Revival
In July 2005, after a three-year hiatus, a new Daimler, the Super
Eight, was presented, with a 4.2 L V8 supercharged engine
which produces 291 kW (400 bhp) and a torque rating of 533 Nm
(395 ft·lbf) at 3500 rpm. It is derived from the
Jaguar X350.
Daimler in the media
- The Queen Mother was
usually driven in a Daimler DS420 and
one of her cars is now in the royal fleet.
- The Queen's own car for personal use is a 2008 Daimler Super
Eight (based on the Jaguar XJ).
See also
References
- Ford names Tata Motors preferred bidder for Jaguar,
Land Rover
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