Meet Daimler’s 1959 Marmite Marvel

Introduced in 1959, the Daimler Dart sports car received a mixed reception. It is known as a Marmite car. You either love the styling, or not. Daimler dropped the Dart moniker due to a legal challenge by Dodge who also used the name. It became the SP250.
With a traditional, low slung box girder chassis together with fibre glass body, and a 2.5 litre V8 engine with 140bhp, the car performed well. A low centre of gravity and exceptional acceleration for its time, plus 120mph top speed, appealed to police forces across the country.
Café speeders on motorbikes were beyond reach for traditional Wolseley police squad cars and these black two-seater sports cars became a useful deterrent with two burly policemen inside. They also came in handy on the newly opened M1, which was fast becoming a race-track and test bed, especially for Aston Martin, who were based at Newport Pagnell.
The E Type, Triumph TR4, Lotus Elan and MGB were yet to be produced, so the Daimler stole a march on this lucrative fast small sports car sector, plus a healthy amount were exported to the USA.
Stylish wheel arch extensions and fabulous chrome rear fins added to the allure but not everyone loved the grouper fish face. The lightweight V8 engine was a masterpiece and, of course, sounded great with those twin chrome tailpipes.
Daimler was bought by Jaguar in 1960, who were producing their own medium-sized sports saloon known as the Mk2. This was powered by either 2.4 litre, 3.4 litre or 3.8 litre six-cylinder engines.
However, to fill the need for a more upmarket saloon, Daimler used the same bodyshell with their 2.5 V8 engine and included a more luxurious leather interior and other Daimler features. Almost all were automatic and, surprisingly, this saloon car developed its own character and style, which went on to outlive the Jaguar version by two years.
Production ended in 1970, when the newly introduced Daimler Sovereign took over. This was similar to Jaguar’s XJ6 saloon.
I personally love the styling if the colour is right, along with marmite!