Rusty But Trusty

Most North Americans, who may have noticed the Sovereign trim level of the Jaguar XJ6 (or perhaps the Vanden Plas, for that matter) will most likely be unfamiliar with the Daimler Sovereign. Based on a Jaguar 420, the Sovereign was targeted at a more conservative buyer, and amounted to being a loaded 420 with some improved interior trim and different badging – clearly someone was looking over GM’s shoulder. One could even argue Jaguar foreshadowed GM’s badge engineering strategy, since their “no really, these cars are totally different because we say so” approach to branding only became really egregious in the 1970s. That said, if you show up with one of the more obscure versions of a badge-engineered car 50 years later, it’s a fun bit of novelty. Check out this 1967 Daimler Sovereign for sale for $3200 in Tempe, AZ.

E-reg plates actually correspond to the 1967 model year, so these are likely the plates the car ran with before it left its home country. Those bias-ply tires also look like the originals, so count on replacing those if you want to go further than a couple miles. Here you can see the typical Daimler front end with the fluted grill, which, along with Ds everywhere you’d see a cat on a 420, are really the only clear indicators of what this car is. Note the cool roll-back Webasto ragtop, all the better to make sure the hoi polloi can see you cruising by in your motorcar of distinction. Interestingly, the Jeep in the background sports Paris-Peking rally stickers, so you’d likely be dealing with an enthusiast of unusual cars.

Since this is a UK-market car, it is right-hand-drive. While you might argue this is a negative on this car, you can also be certain to find it a home back there, possibly for more money than you’d ever get in North America. The car has been stored for a long period of time, and is said to start, stop, run and drive, but you’ll want to plan on a resurrection if you like your cars to be reliable. The above picture, while not terribly interesting, shows some checking of the paint, but from what the pictures indicate, this looks to be a fairly solid driver candidate.

Editorial note – in a strange coincidence, this happens to be the 420th post here!

Tags: british, daimler, Feature, sedan, sovereign

This entry was posted on February 14, 2014 at 10:45 am and is filed under Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.