1964 Daimler 2.5L V8 Saloon

1964 Daimler 2.5L V8 Saloon 3sp Automatic
OK here is the story on this. I bought this from a trusted seller in San Francisco. The original title is dated as expiring in 1986 and in the name of Arthur Haysson of beautiful Sebastopol, north of San Francisco. Arthur was a British Airways pilot and some time before 1986 when he was posted to San Francisco he imported his right hand drive Daimler from the UK. It stayed right hand drive the whole time he owned it in USA until I bought it relatively cheaply in 2011. I was drawn to its immaculately original and perfect exterior paint, immaculate chrome and glass and to a very nice original interior. The car started and ran nicely around the block and looked very original.
However upon closer inspection on a hoist after importing to Australia it became clear that whilst we had an immaculately stored undercover car by exterior and interior appearance that we had a car that was neglected mechanically. This was the point where it was decided to have the car taken to Classic Car Clinic, Daimler specialists on the Gold Coast to have it assessed. A list of issues as long as your arm followed and it was decision time to either sell as is and take a huge loss or spend up big on anything and everything and get the underside and mechanicals to match the excellent condition of the exterior and then go about loving it and driving it for some time of which that was the choice made.
Just about everything on the underside was replaced, the whole front end including the whole front axle and subframe assembly, steering arms and parts, wheel bearings, full brake system rebuild from brake shoes to wheel cylinder, hoses and master cylinders were replaced, a $1000 genuine new UK made Daimler stainless steel exhaust was sourced and fitted, suspension was renewed, new sway bars fitted, motor was fully reconditioned including new engine mounts, new genuine radiator core sourced and fitted, o erhaul fully power steering system, overhaul rear diff and axle. Attention to original detail was importantly followed at huge expense.
Then we had her registered and started to drive her and then when doing this we ironed out all the bugs. We went through all the usual "early days" breakdowns of cooling system and braking system failures and along the way tweaked electrical issues and adjusted door and boot closers, fixed the interior heating system and had the usual services, cleaned and replaced spark plugs, tighened belts, reset carbys etc to an early constant point until now that it starts and drives every time now and is a reliable and totally and immaculately overhauled vehicle. New tyres were also fitted.
On the interior side, new retractable seat belts and child restraints were fitted early on after arrival here to suit compliace requirements. Then at a later date leather reconditoning was tirelessly and repeatedly worked into the beautifully presented used patina leather and this then looked so fabulous that it was then necessary to order from Aldridge Trimming in the UK a full interior carpet kit and have shipped here and fitted to now have the new carpet stand tall against the beaut leather and well presented door trims and beautifully presented woodgrain dash and steering wheel and instrumentation and the interior presentation was now complete.
So what you have now is an immaculate 1964 Daimler that wont let you down and this is not a shabby $10000-20000 price range Daimler that you see pop up at Shannons and other auctions or elsewher advertised - that was where we were before we made the decision to make this an immaculate unit and go through this process painstakenly for someone else to be rewarded on. We are still going to make a huge loss of the sale of this car but at least we have enjoyed the ride and driving her for a number of years in the process and happy to be passing on something of substance.
We have a hoist at our premise and you can see the work put into this fab unit and we have the recipts to prove as well. Asking price $29900.


Also published at eBay.com.au