THE DAIMLER SP 250
V8 POWER BUT VERY BRITISH AS WELL
On a brilliant, sunny Queenstown day we arrive at Dick and Margaret Shank’s home. Sitting out front, all white and glistening chrome, almost begging to be driven, is their Daimler SP250 sports car. To the north, across Lake Wakatipu, is majestic
Ben Lomond and, to the east, is the vista of the snow-capped Remarkables. It’s not a bad day to be out cruising.
You can tell that Dick is keen to get out in the Daimler, and, like most, he continues to refer to it as a ‘Dart’, even though Chrysler stymied that one at the car’s launch at the New York International Auto Show in 1959. After lunch and a chat about the car’s history since they bought it in 2009, we take a drive out along the peninsula. There is a slightly chilly breeze, so we opt for the top staying up. There is definitely a process for getting into one of these with the hood up. Once in, there is a surprising amount of room just for two.
For a car restored in the late 1990s, it looks more like it was completed recently. It has weathered well, and there is no sign of wear to the carpets, leather trim, or hood lining, or problems with the fibreglass body.
“I like the noise. It’s got a lovely sound,” Dick says as he fires up the Daimler and gives a couple of stomps on the accelerator.
“It’s a fun car to drive, and we have done 12,870km since we bought it. I put a Moto-lita steering wheel on it, a gear knob, and I fitted an electronic ignition a few months ago. That’s about it apart from regular servicing locally,” he says.
Favourite jaunt
Designed in the 1950s, the Daimler rides firmly, steers well, brakes well, and has plenty of get-up-and-go, with an ability to cruise all day at 130kph, as they were designed to do. That exhaust rumble is something else! Who needs a radio?
Dick obviously likes driving it — and driving it quickly — and, as we enter a less cluttered area of the peninsula, the revs lift noticeably. The short-travel suspension, courtesy of Triumph, does not like potholes, so avoiding those is prudent. What stands out, however, is how taut it is. There is little scuttle shake or body flex, which was quite a problem for Daimler until Jaguar largely rectified the problem in the B- and C-spec models after its takeover. It’s comfortable and it rides firmly.
There is a bit of a glint in his eye as Dick relates that there is one outing each November that he enjoys — an event run down south by the Gore Vintage Car Club (VCC) that uses a now-closed section of what was formerly a part of the main highway.
“I love taking this down to the Josephville Hill Climb in Lumsden each year,” he tells us. “It always goes well, and it gets a good time near the top of the bunch. It’s my favourite outing of the year.”
Fun behind the wheel
A few years ago, Dick was the owner of a very nice 1957 Austin-healey 100-6. The car had a notable history in the hands of a talented young driver by the name of George Lawton. Lawton was a winner of the Driver to Europe scheme in the late 1950s. In reports, it stated that he died in 1960 at a Dutch Formula 2 meeting while being assisted from the crash site by a close friend, the late Denny Hulme.
“The Daimler is a totally different car. I’d sooner
drive the Dart than the Healey. The Healey is heavier on the steering, and, with the Daimler converted to rack-and-pinion steering, it’s just so much better and direct. I’ve been round the South Island twice in the Healey, and I’d prefer to do it in the Daimler,” he opines.
It’s time for a driver change, and, with the steering wheel to hang on to, it definitely is easier getting in. The wheel sits close to your chest, but it’s not too close. Moving off is easy, and this is one very smooth engine. It’s helped by the other upgrade to a Toyota Celica five-speed gearbox, which has only enhanced the impression of smoothness, especially at highway speeds.
Racing spirit
Dick Shanks never raced a Daimler SP250, but former open-wheel-racer Laurence Brownlie did. Laurence has fond memories of his Daimler race car.
“I really enjoyed racing them. They were a great car to drive and that engine was just superb,” he says.
He modified the car into a highly competitive sports car back in the 1960s: “There were quite a few modifications to that engine. I had the heads machined in Dunedin, and for a clutch plate, we used an old blade from a sawmill, cut down and with linings bonded to it. It was a great car to drive.”
The car was sold, and, a very short time later, the new owner crashed it and wrote it off.
“The motor ended up in the Begg Daimler race car that George built out at Drummond,” Laurence says.
A favourite enforcement tool
British police — in particular, motorway patrol officers — loved the SP250, and you can see why with its top speed of 195kph.
In August 2018, former Top Gear presenter Chris Evans bought an ex–metropolitan Police Service Daimler SP250 at a Brooklands auction for a cool UK£50,400.
Now, about those looks. On a personal note, I’ve always liked the SP250; it was different.
Jaguar toyed with a one-off, very-triumphtr5-looking upgrade to the body, the SP252. This car may be now in New Zealand undergoing restoration. It’s not hard to see, under the new scheme of things at Leyland, how fellow corporate Triumph would have resisted the production of the SP252 opposite its TR5 and TR6. The SP252 looked really good, and its restrained styling answered the critics.
From parts to pristine
Dick’s little white Daimler SP250 sports car arrived at Derek Prentice’s Classic Cars
workshop in Christchurch in the late 1990s as boxes of bits and pieces. At the time, it was in need of a lot of work after a hard life as a race car in the US.
Derek — assisted by David Bell — did all the major work on it, and quite few parts were either fabricated in-house when the original equipment could not be found easily.
The chassis was stripped and repairs made, before being painted. The body required extensive work to remedy numerous cracks and staring, and new back and front mudguards were grafted onto the body using moulds supplied by the Daimler Jaguar Owners Spare Parts Club in Christchurch.
“We rebuilt the engine ourselves and a steering rack from a Triumph 2000 was adapted and crack-tested to change from it from left to right-hand drive,” Derek says.
A cut-down Jaguar MKII differential was used to replace the original unit, and a new set of wire wheels and hubs was sourced from the US.
Daimler’s dilemma
With the decline in demand for Daimler’s usual luxury models and its increasing
financial woes in the mid 1950s, the parent company, BSA, took a drastic step in 1956.
BSA appointed its talented motorcycle engine designer Edward Turner as chief executive of its motoring division and gave him the brief to come up with two new vehicles to be powered by V8 engines — a saloon and a sports car. The obvious market intention was to chase the US dollar.
The new saloon was slow in development, but a feasibility committee working with Turner determined that the new sports car body would be progressed and it would be built in fibreglass.
The chassis would be adapted from a Triumph TR3 and the gearbox was reverseengineered from that of a Triumph TR3A. The sports car would also have four-wheel disc brakes and seat two.
As an engine designer with the Ariel Square Four and Triumph Bonneville designs to his credit, Turner came up with a compact 2.5-litre V8 heavily based on his Triumph motorcycle internals, with hemispherical heads and a pushrodoperated two valves per cylinder fed by twin SU carburettors.
The result surprised everyone, as it was a lively, smooth-revving power unit — easily the best part of the car. With some 140bhp (104kw) at its disposal at 5800rpm and a redline starting at 6000rpm, it offered impressive performance for the time. It was also one of the best value-for-money sports cars around when it was launched at the New York International Motor Show in 1959 as the A-spec model.
It wasn’t enough to help Daimler, though, and, in 1960, when Sir William Lyons was casting around for some extra manufacturing space, he acquired the company. The SP250 came with the deal and also a 4.4-litre version of the V8. When his engineers slotted one of the small V8s into a MKI Jaguar body, they found the lighter engine performed almost as well as the Jaguar 3.4 and certainly better than their own 2.4-litre engine. A similar exercise with a Mk10 fitted with the 4.4-litre engine from Daimler’s Majestic Major also apparently displeased ‘The Guvnor’ when the car topped 217kph on test. The project was shelved for the big car, but the engine progressed into the smaller Jaguar body as the Daimler 2.5 V8 and, later, Daimler V8-250.
Distinctive for its styling at the time — especially with that low prominent chrome-covered nose and air inlet — over the years, it seems that the SP250 has taken a new lease on life. Current auction market levels have seen a strong revival in the popularity of the car. Accordingly, it has started fetching some impressive prices at auction. Just 2654 SP250S were built between 1959 and 1964.
With some 140bhp (104kw) at its disposal at 5800rpm and a redline starting at 6000rpm, it offered impressive performance for the time