TURNER’S MASTERPIECE
Sweet V8 sets Daimler 250 apart from Jag Mk2, but prices are still diverging
How many enthusiasts really understand
– or get – the Daimler V8 250? Hiding in plain sight alongside its infinitely more popular cousin, the Jaguar
Mk2, the posher Daimler is, despite the shared bodyshell, quite a different car in many ways.
The reason for that difference is its powerplant. Lift the bonnet and instead of seeing an inline ‘six’, the engine bay is home to a compact 2.5-litre V8, which was introduced in the SP250.
That small-displacement powerplant, designed by Edward Turner, is truly the beating heart of the car. It moves the 250 along at a reasonable turn of pace (through a manual or automatic transmission) but it also sounds good, its fruity notes echoing any bent-eight hailing from the other side of the Atlantic.
Launched at the end of 1962, the Jaguar bodyshell was given Daimler adornments, including the fluted grille and registration plate surround, as well as Daimler badges and different hub caps. Daimlerspecific body and interior colours meant that the 250 stood out from its Jaguar siblings and today originalorder cars or those sympathetically restored in the correct colour are highly sought-after.
It’s worth noting that while Jaguar enthusiasts can get hot under the collar about run-out 240s and 340s lacking the character of their betterspecified Mk2 predecessors, the Daimler doesn’t suffer in the same way, even though it gained thinner bumpers at the same time as the Jaguars.
The Daimler tops out at a shade over 100mph, and its 0-60mph time was 13.6 seconds. By comparison, a Jaguar 2.4 could do 102mph and hit 60mph from rest in 14.5 seconds; figures for the 3.8 are 125mph and 8.5 seconds.
So how much do these cars cost? Five sold at auction last month, at prices ranging from £2812 (H&H’s project car) to £17,600 for a very good, condition 2/2+ car at Classic
Car Auctions. Brightwells had a condition 2- 1967 example for £7150 while the remaining pair, at Barons and H&H, made £12,100 and £12,150 respectively.
November saw two 250s sell at Anglia Car Auctions – a down-at-heel project made £2120 and a tidy 1968 car £10,812.
Decent supply keeps prices sensible; even the best examples don’t command the prices of Jaguar 3.4s and 3.8s. Yet that V8 lends the Daimler a pleasingly different and appealing character.