Fate frowned on Daimler’s roadster
The Daimler name goes back to the dawn of automotive history when Germans Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler introduced what were recognized as the first true internal combustion engine automobiles in 1886.
Daimler and partners soon formed a car-building company, and in 1893 the Daimler Motor Syndicate Ltd. – later Daimler Co. Ltd. – was established in Coventry, England to manufacture Daimlers under licence.
The English company gradually began developing and manufacturing cars of its own design. In 1900 the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, bought a Daimler and granted Daimler a Royal Warrant in 1902, beginning a British Crown association that lasted some 50 years.
Befitting royalty, Daimlers evolved into mostly conservative vehicles, exemplified by fitting the quiet Knight sleeve-valve engine in 1909.
Daimler fell into financial difficulty and in 1910 and was purchased by Birmingham Small Arms, better known for motorcycles than cars. Daimler continued with luxury cars, introducing the almost silent sleeve-valve 12cylinder Double Six Daimler in 1927, a car much favoured by the royal family.
After Second World War contributions that included armoured cars and aero engines, Daimler continued building cars in its conservative way until the 1950s when it was reorganized with a broader market view. It introduced a sporty Conquest model aimed at the Jaguar XK120, but being overpriced and underpowered only 119 coupes and convertibles were built before production ceased in 1957.
But Daimler wanted to continue trying to exploit the rising popularity of British sports cars in North America and entered the real sports car business in 1959.
B.S.A. motorcycle engineer Edward Turner developed two new V8s, a 2.5 litre for the sports car and a 4.5 litre for big sedans. Having little sports car background, Daimler engineers observed what others were doing, particularly Triumph, also Coventry based.
Daimler bought a Triumph which it secretly disassembled and analyzed, so it’s no coincidence that the Daimler and Triumph TR3 had some striking similarities.
The front coil springs and A-arms were the same as the Triumph's, and the four-speed manual transmission was similar. Daimler later offered an automatic transmission, which the Triumph didn't, and its four-wheel disc brakes were an advanced feature.
The heart of Daimler's sports car was Turner’s 90degree, overhead valve, 2.5litre V8 with cross-flow, light alloy cylinder heads and hemispherical combustion chambers fed by two SU carburetors.
Styling bore no similarity to the Triumph. Its large rounded hood sloped down to a wide, oval, eggcrate grille dominated by a big "V" to advertise the V8, a rarity in Britain (Rolls-Royce had recently introduced one). The familiar Daimler flutes surrounded the grille, and there were no bumpers.
Stylish lines, probably more for body stiffening than character, curved over the front and rear fenders. It was the tailfin era and Daimler had them too. While most observers didn't call the Daimler beautiful, it at least offered the comfort of roll-up windows.
Because large scale production wasn't planned they saved money on metal stamping dies by fabricating the body from glass fibre. This was fairly rare although the Chevrolet Corvette and Lotus, among others, used fibreglass.
Daimler introduced a preproduction example named the Dart at the New York Auto Show in April, 1959. Chrysler Corp. immediately objected. It had already used the Dart name on a concept car and planned to launch a 1960 Dodge Dart production car. Daimler renamed its car the SP250 (for sports and 2.5 litres).
Sales began in the late fall of 1959 and British testers found the engine a delight but criticised the fibreglass body’s lack of overall stiffness and poor workmanship. The SP250 suffered badly from cowl shake, and The Autocar's tester was surprised when the driver's door popped open twice during hard turns.
The SP250 suffered the same criticism in North America. Road & Track (3/60) found cowl shake their biggest criticism, but called the V-8, "... without a doubt the outstanding feature of the machine."
The engine developed 140 horsepower at 5,800 rpm and 155 lb-ft of torque at 3,600, and propelled the 1,025 kg (2,260 lb) SP250 to 97 km/h (60 mph) in a respectable 9.1 seconds. Top speed was 196 km/h (122 mph).
The SP250 got off to a somewhat slow start, in part because of quality problems with the body. Then in 1960 B.S.A. sold Daimler to Jaguar whose priority was its new Etype launch just months away.
In spite of emphasis on the E-Type, Jaguar did upgrade the SP250 by stiffening the frame/body and making bumpers standard equipment.
It was further improved in 1963, but unfortunately its early poor quality reputation seemed to plague it to the end.
This came quietly in mid1964 after just 2,645 had been built, ending Daimler's sports car endeavours.