Sometimes I cannot believe the remarkable vehicle related experiences this olelongrooffan stumbles into. Today I was down at my brother’s Goodyear shop getting my Comanche’s bodily fluids changed and one of his clients drives up in this 1961 Daimler (dame-ler) SP 250!! Yeah, you read that correctly, a 1961 Daimler SP 250! One of only 1,200 left hand drive SP 250’s produced, along with 1,445 right hand drive units, between 1959 and 1964. My brother told me that when he pointed this out to me as it was pulling in, my jaw just dropped, my eyes got as big as saucers and that I said nothing, just headed over to that truck and grabbed my image taker. I was aware of the existence of these but had never previously seen any of the three of them located in the Sunshine State.
And I have to tell you this: that affable owner answered every question I had for him and provided a ton of additional information.
This 2218 pound ragtop is 13 feet, 4 1/2 inches long and 5 feet, 1/2 inch wide. I don’t know the height of it but the dude standing beside it in the above image is 5’10” tall.
The SP 250 was originally named the Daimler Dart but Dodge, who owns the copyright to the Dart name, objected and this was rebadged to the name it currently possesses.
The owner related to me, after commenting that I asked a lot of questions, this fiberglass, yes that’s glass fibre in merry old England, sports car was designed with the US market in mind. In an attempt to emulate the success Jaguar, Triumph and MG had in the late 50’s here in the states, Daimler hastily put this together for the 1959 New York Motor Show.
Sorry, once again, about my crappy el cheapo image taker.
Edward Turner designed this 2,548cc hemispherical combustion chambered V-8, utilizing SU carburetors, and it was the most desirable feature of this Daimler sports car. Looks just like a little baby Chrysler hemi, except for those carbs. Girling (or maybe Dunlop?) hydraulic disc brakes provide stopping power at each corner while a synchronized four speed transmission was utilized. At the time of the SP 250’s introduction, Daimler was known for mostly their sedans (Ed: see 1964 Daimler Majestic Major 4.5 Liter in this CC Cohort piece), the British Royal Family’s choice for their private cars, and this was Daimler’s fastest offering to that point. Its top speed was 123 miles per hour with a 0-60 mph time a still respectable 8.9 seconds. It averaged 21 miles per US gallon.
The low mouth on this reminds me of the early Triumph TR’s while the headlights bring the Bugeye Sprite to mind. The location of turn signal indicators above the headlights provide some interesting body contour lines. Yeah, that’s my brother, thejeepjunkie, on the left getting a whole education on this rare Daimler SP 250.
While many contemporary sports cars were sporting wire wheels, Daimler decided to build toward the American market by offering full size wheel covers including
the spinner style offered on the Corvette. The owner mentioned this was yet another of the US market inspired features of it.
The dashboard of this SP 250 has just enough gauges and toggle switches to make it highly desirable to me. And the location of that handbrake in the passenger compartment? I thought the Lotus Caterham was the only one to have that feature!
And while the SP 250 was marketed as a 2+2, I sure don’t see anything other than a tote bag or small pet sitting in the rear seat of it.
Check out the hood hinges in the above image and keep them in mind when looking at the trunk hinges in a later image. Those pins along the top of the dashboard are to hold the, now rare, cockpit tonneau cover in place.
As I was hunched down alongside the driver’s door of this object of art and chatting it up with the owner, he extolled on the fact that Daimler was trying to hit the desired US market with fiberglass (Corvette), low mouth (Triumph TR), fins (pretty much anything in the late 50’s) and spinners (again, Corvette). I quickly gathered the above image as he chuckled and stated “I guess they failed on all accounts.”
I would disagree and apparently so does he as he drives this classic around 2,000 miles per year
.
One of the questions I asked him was how he acquired it? “The best man in my wedding owned this and left it to me in his will. As much as I like this car, I would rather have him still be around and have me as a passenger.” In our version of car Heaven, this will happen Kind Sir.
I also asked him what his daily drivers were. “Well, here in Florida, my wife has a PT Cruiser but I have this along with my Austin Mini Wagon.” Yeah! “In Chicago, I have my GMC Denali and an Alfa Milano.” Yeah! “I also have 4 or 5 Morgans scattered around.” Yeah! This olelongrooffan has a new best friend and I am visiting his garages real real soon.
He also mentioned that, due to the recession in the late 50’s, these were not great selling automobiles. Several of the automatic versions of them ended up in the United Kingdom metropolitan police department fleet. Yeah, and we thought Italian Lamborgini cop cars were cool!
However, in summation I must note, as cool as this car is and as totally stoked as I am in being able to see one in person and share it with you,
it is still an English car with all its leaks and Lucas electrics, after all.
The final photo really makes the piece.
Nice find. That’s a pretty car. It looks like the driving position is a bit tight for a big man. To me, it looks like a convertible Ford Anglia.
The Police ones were black, which looked very sober with two uniformed bobbies in it. I’ve never seen a red one, but my doctor had a cream one (in the 60s).
That (crooked) front bumper was an optional extra and the cars looked much better without it.
The car never really cracked the sportscar market – maybe the chassis was not good enough , there was no competition heritage, and the front-end licking the road didn’t appeal to too many people. Being a Daimler, it wasn’t cheap either.
When Jaguar took control of Daimler they kept the engine but ditched the rest of the car.
Wow, talk about rare…and how great is it to see a running, driving, usable one??!
About four years ago we were northbound on the LA-area 101 freeway and saw, so help me, a Jowett Jupiter parked beside the road…nobody around. It would probably have taken half an hour to get back to it – I’ll always wonder what was up.
friend of my father’s had one he was restoring when i was a kid in new jersey. i remember being amazed at the sight of it. sadly, the owner met an untimely death in a motorcycle accident and never got a chance to finish the restoration.
What a great find. The engine in these is fantastic. The designer was more used to motorcycle engines from what I remember.
There is one around here and its always a treat to see even if the cosmetics aren’t up to the standards of this one.
To most Triumph (motorcycle) enthusiasts, this motor is considered probably the last really good design that Edward Turner did. He was already slightly past his peak as a designer, and during the sixties definitely turned into an old man totally steeped in his past. Unfortunately, the technology had moved on, while he still considered the Speed Twin engine perfectly state-of-the-art.
And when he finally tried to design something modern (Fury 350), the results were disastrous.
The biggest thing that sank the SP250 was that the chassis was nowhere near to being up to the job. I’ve read reports that claimed a great deal of body flex, to the point that doors would pop open.
His good designs.. The speed twin, the Daimler V8, were ripoff’s of Riley’s hemi head, and conventional otherwise.. His original thinking designs were all flawed.
There was one if these in black parked on the street and in use as a daily driver in the late 70s/early 80s in Mill Valley. I used to see it regularly. I never realized at the time just how rare it was.
Wow, never knew they were THAT rare. It’s been 10 years since I’ve seen one and that was on a PPG Deltron poster (I think, might have been Sikkens.)
The local dentist where I grew up had a white onr of these he brought it from England when he emuigrated rare car then and now real rare.
Jaguar (and later BLMC) looked for other things to do with that engine, mostly without success. There was the Daimler V8 250 saloon, essentially a Mk 2 Jaguar with a Daimler grille and the 2.5-liter engine, and some tentative plans for a new small sports car that would have offered the Daimler V8 as base power (with the stillborn 3.6-liter 60-degree Jaguar V8 as the option) that never got off the ground. There was even some thought of putting it in the MGB, although as far as I know, they never actually built one. One of Jaguar’s problems was that the V8 outperformed some iterations of the XK six, which was considered a little embarrassing at Browns Lane.
Didn’t MG put an 8 in one of their GT versions? Maybe it was this one?
There was indeed a short-lived MGB GT V8, but it used the all-aluminum Buick/Rover 3.5-liter V8, also used in the Range Rover and Rover P6 sedans, not the Daimler, which by then had been discontinued.
It reminds me of my 74 Midget. And the Daimler owner seems to fit his like I did in my MG.
The full tonneau was nice, you could zip up all but the driver. A plus in Illinois in October.
Had one of these living in our suburban London street for some years – looked after, but a daily driver nevertheless. Like the early TRs and the Bug-Eye (both of which you cite), the styling is “so wrong it’s right” – as opposed to the more classical proportions of, say, the Healey 3000, E-type or MGA.
SP250/Dart is still a popular classic, you’ll always see a couple at Goodwood or the classic meets.
I noticed your concern “And while the SP 250 was marketed as a 2+2, I sure don’t see anything other than a tote bag or small pet sitting in the rear seat of it.” As the daughter of the owner…I can happily report that as a kid, I rode many a miles with one of my brothers back there!
And I bet it was a cramped but thoroughly enjoyable ride. What a great joy it must have been to be exposed to the unique rides your Dad drives.
Paul is that an 86′ crapmanche? I drive an 86′ myself
junkharvester: that is my 86 Comanche in the background. Look for a My Curbside Classic on it sometime in the near future.
One of the Police SP250 Automatics. Note bells on the bumper, before the era of sirens in Britain.