Sunday 19th June 1960

BSA sold Daimler to Jaguar Cars for £3.4 million, which continued Daimler’s line and added a Daimler variant of its Mark II sports saloon. Jaguar discontinued the six-cylinder Majestic in 1962 and the SP250 in 1964, but Daimler’s core product, the old-fashioned, heavy but fast 4.5 L V8 Majestic Major, was continued throughout Jaguar’s independent ownership of Daimler. In 1961 Daimler introduced the DR450, a long-wheelbase limousine version of the Majestic Major. The DR450 also continued in production beyond the end of Jaguar’s independent ownership of Daimler. 864 examples of the long-wheelbase DR450 were sold, as opposed to 1180 examples of the Majestic Major saloon. The 4.5 litre saloon and limousine were the last Daimlers not designed by Jaguar. In 1966 Jaguar was merged into the British Motor Corporation and in 1968 with British Leyland. Under these companies, Daimler became an upscale trim level for Jaguar cars except for the 1968-1992 Daimler DS420 limousine, which had no Jaguar equivalent despite being fully Jaguar-based. Jaguar was split off from British Leyland in 1984 and bought by the Ford Motor Company in 1989. Ford stopped using the Daimler name on Jaguars (or any other cars) in 2007 and sold Jaguar to Tata Motors in 2008. Tata bought the Daimler and Lanchester brands with Jaguar, but has not used them thus far; as of 2015, the brand appears to be dormant.