The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and Clarifications column, April 1 2004
The demise of Daimler was prematurely announced in the report below. Jaguar Cars has asked us to point out that it has not abandoned the marque and has every intention of continuing to use the Daimler name in the future What does the name Daimler mean to you? Gottlieb Daimler, perhaps, commonly accepted inventor, alongside Karl Benz, of the first practical motor car?
Or, what about the Daimler Majestic Major, a hot-rod 60s' V8 limo, beloved of the Kray twins and, complete with separate chassis, vertical radiator grille, lashings of walnut veneer and Vaumol leather, 220bhp and 122mph, the last of the true Daimler cars?
And who could ignore Norah Collins, the former Café de Paris dancer who married Lord Docker, Daimler's postwar chairman, and wowed Fleet Street year after year with some of the most gloriously kitsch cars ever made?
The first "Docker Daimler" was smothered in 7,000 gold stars, its brightwork gold-plated throughout. Others, such as the 1954 Daimler Stardust, boasted chintz and crocodile skin interiors, making up for the lack of gaiety in a nation still officially austere.
Whatever the word conjures, Jaguar Cars announced yesterday that it would no longer be making Daimlers. Not that it ever has really, or at least not since 1968, when production of the Majestic Major ended. Ever since every Daimler has been an example of the ubiquitous motor industry "badge engineering". This includes the late Queen Mother's favourite Daimler DS 420 limousine, an undertakers' and mayoral favourite in the 70s, and the best-selling Daimler 2.5-litre and V8-250 saloons built for bank managers and retired senior civil servants as an alternative to Jaguar's getaway Mk2 of cops and robbers fame.
More recently, Daimler-badged XJ saloons have been marketed under the label Jaguar Vanden Plas. Vanden Plas is the name of an old Belgian coachbuilder, spelling luxury, bought by Austin after the second world war. Its craft skills were eventually brought in-house by Jaguar in 1979. By then Daimler meant next to nothing to the US public, and precious little to the Cortina-era British either.
Sir William Lyons had bought Daimler from BSA Automotive in 1960. Jaguar's chairman liked the extra production capacity that the buyout gave his sporty cars in Coventry, and he liked Edward Turner's V8 engine, as smooth as a sewing machine, which powered the Majestic Major and, in smaller form, the bug-eyed and fin-tailed glass-fibre bodied SP250 sports car of 1959.
By the 1960s Daimlers were regarded as beautifully built but decidedly old-fashioned conveyances for upper-middle, upper-class and royal families. Edward VII had granted Daimler a royal warrant in 1902, and the Queen was still driving around in a splendid Hooper-bodied Daimler Empress in the mid-1950s. Daimlers had been her father's favourites. The Duke of Edinburgh preferred Rolls-Royces. Perhaps the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family - Windsor from 1917 - felt comfortable with these English offshoots of Gottlieb Daimler's parent company.
The English Daimlers, as they were known, were first assembled in 1896 in Coventry, from engines sent from Germany and chassis shipped from the French car-maker Panhard & Levassor. The company, founded by Frederick Simms, became a car manufacturer when Harry Lawson, a conman later convicted and sentenced to hard labour, reshaped the company.
Reconstituted in 1904, when its great competitor Rolls-Royce was formed, Daimler was, by then, an all English product. Secreted beneath the venerable looking skins of these palaces-on-wheels were some notable engineering firsts.
The first European V12, a super-smooth engine, powered the legendary Daimler Double Six of 1926, while the Majestic Major of the 1960s remains one of the most surprising of all cars to drive. You would never believe it from its stately exterior, but it boasts a lightweight, free-revving aluminium-headed engine, all-round disc brakes, cut-throat razor-sharp steering and other engineering refinements that enable this apparently matronly car to be chucked around like some lithe princess dancing a reel. The last Daimlers, however, have finally spun off the contemporary British motoring scene.
· Jonathan Glancey is the Guardian's design critic
