IN THE mid-1960s the British motor industry certainly knew how to do it in style and one of the most luxurious offerings was the 1966 Daimler Sovereign.
This was a more upmarket version of the contemporaneous Jaguar 420 which was also a fast and fabulous car of its day
With a Daimler grille and better standard equipment the Sovereign had the same four-door monocoque bodyshell as the Jaguar equivalent but it was equipped with all-round independent coil-sprung suspension, disc brakes and a detuned version (245bhp vs. 265bhp) of the Mk X's 4235cc DOHC straight-six engine.
This was the first Daimler version of a Jaguar since the wonderful 2.5 V8, based on the Mk2 bodyshell.
But the Sovereign was a much more modern car and in many ways was a testbed for the forthcoming Jaguar XJ6. It is now among the rarest of the delights of the Brown's Lane factory.
There were thoughts of fitting the Sovereign with the 4.5 V8 engine as used in the Majestic Major.
But company politics kicked in very quickly and because the Daimler engine significantly outgunned the Jaguar XK engine, the idea was quickly binned as Jaguars were meant to be more sporty than the more stately Daimlers.
But what a car the Sovereign would have been if the big V8 had been dropped into it. I did sample the engine many years ago in the Majestic DR 450 limousine and its performance was impressive even in such a massively heavy car.
The Sovereign would have been stupendous with this power unit.
The company quietly changed the final drive ratio from 3.31:1 to 3.54:1 in 1967 resulting in some cribs over fussier high speed cruising.
However the change resulted in a better acceleration times from stand-still which partly made up for the criticism.
It was one of the imposing cars ever to be turned out by Daimler and even today a well preserved example can make expensive modern wheels look ordinary.
Although more than 5,000 examples were built, I still think this car was killed off before its time. In 1968 the Jaguar XJ6 emerged and the 420-based Sovereign Sovereign remained producti
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