Family heirloom enters the light
In June 2000, Tom Akers was in Vero Beach, Florida enjoying a couple of days off. In his local bar, he overheard a customer talking about a rare car he was trying to sell. Enthusiast Akers asked if he could see the car, which turned out to be a ’51 Daimler Barker Special Sports that the vendor had owned for decades. Now he needed to pay medical bills, so Akers bought it and trailered it home to Ohio.
A few months later he had his briefcase stolen, and along with it the title for the Daimler. He had no luck in gaining an Ohio title, then in 2010 he passed away unexpectedly, leaving the unrestored car to his son Robert. “He left it in the barn where his father had parked it,” said Akers’ friend and business partner Ryan Thompson.
Akers Jnr couldn’t bear to part with the Daimler, but in 2016 Thompson got a text saying that the barn roof had fallen on the car so he might sell. When Thompson went to collect the Daimler, he had to dismantle the front of the barn to get it out, then various roof timbers had to be removed. Happily, he has at last been able to get a Florida title, and the rebuild will start soon.
Around 500 of these handsome cars were built, and the previous history of this example is unknown. It was registered in the UK as QC 5477 – a London number issued by the RAC ‘for foreign visitors only’. Presumably it was bought new by an American, who used it in the UK before taking it home – where a subsequent owner swapped the engine for a six-cylinder Chevrolet unit with Saginaw transmission.