My father had a Daimler Century preceded by two Jowett Javelins and succeeded by a Rolls-Royce Phantom III, then progressively smaller cars via a Bentley R-type Continental to ‘Dotty’, a 1956 Daimler Drophead Coupé, for his final 20 years or so.
My own car career went from a Morris Minor followed by progressively larger cars via a Barker-bodied Lanchester LD10 and the Daimler (originally Lanchester) Dauphin, which featured in your April 2018 issue. A Daimler Empress came next, and finally I took on ‘Dotty’.
My present ‘modern’ car isa1996 VW-badged Škoda pick-up.
This, though, is my DN-250. In 1958, production of the Daimler Conquest Century had ceased but a 2½-litre V8 engine was being developed for a new range of cars.
Daimler therefore had a marvellous new engine but nothing apart from the SP250 sports car to put it into. One mass-production proposal was ‘Daimlerising’.
In 1959, a styling prototype was constructed based on Vauxhall Cresta body panels, and another complete Cresta was bought and fitted with a 2½-litre V8 engine for road testing. But in May 1960 Jaguar bought Daimler, and the prototypes disappeared.
On the cover of the July ’87 issue of Driving Member, the magazine of the Daimler & Lanchester Owners’ Club, was an artist’s impression of the DN-250, and an article in the September issue concluded that it was (probably) the prototype Vauxhall Cresta-bodied saloon.
It took my fancy, but I took another 20 years to do anything about it.
In March 2007 I bought a rusty Vauxhall Cresta PA without an engine; a Turner 2½-litre V8 out of a Daimler/Jag that had been written off; a radiator shell from a Daimler Conquest; and a couple of bumper bars that might be made to fit.
