Description
We love these quirky little sportscars here, they are a real individual choice! This is a 1961 Daimler SP250 Dart, Finished in Old English White with Black leather, She was restored in around 2008 and has been owned by the same family for over 41 years! She is in a nicely mellowed condition and represents great value in todays market!
One of the oldest and most aristocratic names in motoring history, Daimler was long famed for producing a string of worthy but unremarkable cars aimed at satisfying the conservative tastes of the upper-middle-class motorist. How extraordinary, then, that they should suddenly spring one of the most outlandishly-styled sportscars ever to grace the highway onto an unsuspecting public. Aimed squarely at the American market, the Daimler Dart was launched at the 1959 New York Motor Show but was soon renamed the SP250 after Chrysler asserted that they had already trademarked the Dart name for a forthcoming Dodge. It featured a truly wacky glassfibre body that combined a bewildering assortment of curves, bulges and fins with a face that came straight from a grouper fish. Like Marmite, you either love it or hate it, but you certainly can’t ignore it.
Built on a traditional cruciform-braced ladder-frame chassis equipped with independent coil-and-wishbone front suspension and a leaf-sprung 'live' rear axle, it had modern disc brakes all round and a four-speed manual gearbox with synchromesh on the top three speeds. But what really grabbed the attention of anyone who drove it was the magnificent V8 engine. Designed by Edward Turner, this 2. 5-litre ‘hemi’ is unquestionably one of the most charismatic engines ever made, a lightweight marvel of unparalleled refinement and flexibility that also produces a most fabulously fruity exhaust note. Producing 140bhp and 155lb/ ft of torque, it could throw the Dart to 60 in 8. 2 seconds on its way to a top speed of 125mph, but was flexible enough to burble around town in top. No wonder it proved an immediate hit with the police who ordered a small fleet as high-speed pursuit vehicles, all painted black. Drag racers also loved the engine and it became a favourite on the strip where the top fuel boys ultimately managed to extract well over 1, 000bhp from this heroic V8.
In initial ‘A’ series form the car was criticized for an over-flexible chassis and when Jaguar took over Daimler in 1960, they promptly brought out a ‘B’ spec version with a much-stiffened frame, thicker bodywork and other detail improvements. In 1963 the car was improved still further as the ‘C’ series, featuring more sumptuous trim and luxuries such as a heater. Production finally came to an end in 1964 by which time just 2, 645 examples had been sold, the vast majority in America. Survivors are now surprisingly rare and good ones have shot up in value recently and are highly prized by collectors.
First registered on 15th February 1961, this ‘B’ spec example is a lovely older restoration, 2008 to be precise. The car is showing just 32k miles on the clock, in 1983 she had covered 23k Miles so she has only covered 9k Miles in the last 42 years, and has been in the same family ownership in the same time period with only 2 owners before 1984. There are a huge amount of invoices and photos documenting the restoration from 2008 but not much servie history in recent years as she has been in storage for a while. She runs and drives nicely even though, and is ready for he next owner, you would probably want to service her just for your own peace of mind, even though few miles have been covered.
She comes with owners and service manuals and a nice history folder. The paintwork is very nice, soft top looks like new, and the interior is very nice indeed. All in all a vey nice little Dart for a very attactive price, the cheapest we could see out there and probably one of the nicer ones!
