TWIN TEST DAIMLER V8-250 v ROVER P5B COUPE
AIthough the Daimler and Rover brands may both be defunct today, both were significant forces in the early days of the car industry, with Daimler producing its first car in 1897 and Rover moving from two wheels to four shortly afterwards in 1904.
Both were also headquartered in Coventry, which quickly became the epicentre of the rapidly expanding British car industry, something which encouraged a certain William Lyons to move his company to the city in 1928 and which would eventually have significant repercussions for the Daimler company in particular.
In fact, it was the acquisition of Daimler by Jaguar in 1960 which resulted in the existence of the Daimler V8 you see here, the model leveraging the traditionally stately Daimler marque as a means of creating a less brash, less 'new money' version of the Jaguar Mk2.
Meanwhile Rover was still firmly independent and enjoying a reputation for making finely engineered products of high quality. In fact it had almost the reverse of the image which encouraged Jaguar to adopt the Daimler name, with its products regarded as staid and appealing to the older buyer. In contrast to Jaguar, what Rover needed was a way of livening up its image, something which was achieved to good effect with the purchase of the rights to the alloy V8 from Buick.
Dropping the V8 engine into the Rover P5 transformed the car and together with the rakish coupe body option gave the car an appeal similar to
