Recent additions / change log of this web site

• April 2024
  • I met J.F. Massuelle, who owns a French DS420 with a very special divisionless interior, factory original, and I got permission to make photos for a photo gallery.
  • Also from Mr. Massuelle I received a copy of a 1974 brochure of Hertz/Daimler Hire, and of a 1973 brochure by the French branch of Avis car hire, Both brochures are showing a chauffeur driven DS420 with prices. They were added to the Various sales illustrations page.
  • A Daimler-relevant selection of Jaguar-Daimler Parts Technical Information bulletins from the 1974-1979 period was added to the "Service and Parts Catalogue bulletins" page
  • Also a Daimler-relevant selection of Jaguar Daimler Service Bulletins from the 1979-1983 period was added to the "Service and Parts Catalogue bulletins" page
  • Users of the two DS420 Facebook groups (see my weblinks page) regularly ask where the VIN/chassis number and/or the engine number are located. I have added a description plus photos on the "Production, prices and options" page.
  • Tim Enloe provided a brochure from 2016 by Wilcox Limousines, presenting steel repair panels for the wheel arches and sills of the DS420. I added it to the page with Various technical illustrations.
• February 2024
  • I came across a very interesting series of nine photos made in 1981 in the Limousine Shop at Browns Lane. They are copyrighted, but on my "Production, prices and options" page I have added links to the website of the copyright holder where the photos are shown.
  • I received some 20 photos from the DS420 meeting in Gaydon. They were made by Andrew Taylor. Photos were added to the Gaydon Meeting gallery page (photos 40-60).
  • David Taylor brought his newly acquired "Earls Court 1977" show car to the Gaydon meeting. Plus I got permission to use the photos that he made when he went to London to pick up the car from its 6-year storage. The amount of pictures now is such that I could devote an entire photo gallery to this car.
  • I dug through the Driving Member magazines from 2023, copied all DS420 related items and added them to the Driving Member page and its various "snippet" subpages.
  • With the August 2023 update of this site came an article in French language with an interview of Cliff Ruddell who, as a designer at Jaguar's, worked on a possible successor of the DS420. I have now added an English translations of the two text pages in that article.
  • Georg Dönni from Dönni Classic Car in Switzerland sent an old photo of two very early Woodall Nicholson DS420 hearses that he imported in Switzerland many years ago. I added it to the hearses page.
  • I found a video from the French Television Channel 1 (TF1) showing the Salon Automobile 1986 in Paris, where Jaguar France introduced the DS420 for the French market with 13 seconds of video fame. I already had a press photo from this event available. I added both to the page with contemporary photographs.
  • With the August 2023 "new additions" I announced that a collection of Daimler Service Bulletins from the 1963 to 1972 years had been added to the site. This collection now has been expanded with Service Bulletins from 1972-1979, and Spare Parts bulletins from 1964 and from 1968-1973. Access of all these is via a top level page.
• November 2023
  • On the press photos page we have a number of photos from the introduction of the VandenPlas 1500 model, photographed in the good company of a Daimler DS420 and a Double Six. I have added a link to a YouTube video made for the same occasion at the Vanden Plas factory in Kingsbury.
  • Also added to the contemporary photos page was a photo of Coventry's Lord Mayor car in 1985.
  • I received a photo of the coffin of Lord Mountbatten being carried to a Wilcox DS420 hearse (Aug 30, 1979). This was added to the hearses page.
  • Six photos that decorated the Wilcox showroom in Chalfont St. Peter for many years could be reproduced on the hearses page for this site. They have faded quite heavily, but still make an interesting display.
  • From another collection I could copy five Daimler Press Release bulletins in which the Limousine plays a role. The first one describes the Daimler stand at the Earls Court exhibition in 1968. This was added to the pressphotos page, next to the photo of the stand that was already present.
  • The other four Press Release bulletins, from the 1970-1972 years, were also added to the pressphotos page.
  • I submitted an article about the DS420 Meeting in Gaydon, last May, to the "Jaguar Gazette", magazine of the Dutch Jaguar Daimler Club JDCH. It was published in the november/december issue and I added it to the page with non-English magazine articles.
  • Electrogenic, based near Oxford, converted a DS420 to electric drive. In general, they specialize in converting classic cars to EV. I obtained permission to display photos taken from their website, and added them to the Converted Cars page on my site.
  • An acquaintance pointed me to an interesting blog about the restoration of a 1986 limousine by a company called Bridge Classic Cars in Suffolk. I added a reference to the weblinks page.
  • I was able to buy a brochure from Alvis, specifying many security items that could be added to (among others) a DS420 limo to protect the car for "small arms attacks". It is an impressive list. The brochure was added to the page with various technical illustrations.
  • The Classic Jaguar magazine, August/September issue, had a 7-page article on the DS420. I added it to the page with English language articles.
  • On March 6, 1987, Prince Philip visited the Browns Lane factory to see the progress of the construction of a limousine for the Royal Household. A handful of photos was made, but they cannot be shown here for copyright reasons. On the "Queen Mother's Cars" page I added clickable references to the website of the photo agency.
  • I collected a series of photos to show how the dashboard and steering wheel changed as seen from the position of the driver. They were added to the Model Changes during production page.
  • Also on the page with "Model Changes during production" I have added a few photos showing the change from wing mirrors to door mirrors.
• August 2023
  • I finished the project to search all past Driving Member magazines, and have added all relevant DS420 information either to a specific topic page that already existed on the site, or to the newly created The Driving Member webpage.
  • From 1963 to 1972, Daimler issued "Service bulletins" to the dealers: 412 bulletins in total. I copied them all, and created a main index page to access the collection.
  • I found a number of articles that were written by DS420 owner Don Wright from Tulsa, Oklahoma. They appeared in 2000 in a number of issues of The Driving Member magazine, and I have added them to Don's "Cars and Owners" page.
  • Also from an issue of The Driving Member in 2000 came an article in which Barry Pladdys gives his opinion about the future of the Daimler marque in general, and (a successor of) the DS420 limousine in detail. I have added this to the Successor to the DS420 limousine page.
  • A seller on eBay offered a press pack from hearse manufacturer Woodall Nicholson. Unfortunately, this seller retracted the listing before the auction had ended. But he had provided reasonably good photos, which I have copied to the hearses page.
  • A photo showing the Woodall Nicholson DS420 hearse carrying the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, was added to the hearses page.
  • I received a copy of the 2023 Spring magazine of the French Jaguar Drivers' Club, which had two very extensive articles on the DS420. The authors and the club kindly gave permission to add them to my site. Page with non-English magazine articles.
  • An acquaintance pointed me to a one-page article in the magazine of the Jaguar Enthusiasts Club of March 2021. It was added to the page with English language magazine articles.
  • I submitted an article about the DS420 Meeting in Gaydon, May 14th 2023, to the editor of The Driving Member magazine. It was published in the July 2023 issue and I added it to the Magazine Articles 2013- (English Language) page.
  • I found a 31-page "Repair Operation Times" list from 1986. This gives detailed estimates of how much time various reparations are supposed to take. I added it to the page with Various technical illustrations
• June 2023
  • On May 14 a meeting for DS420 owners was organized at the British Motor Museum in Gaydon. 12 cars were present. I have made up a photo gallery of this event.
  • The scanned versions of the archive of "The Driving Member", magazine of the Daimler and Lanchester Owners' Club, have become available, I am adding the interesting DS420-related pieces to the Driving Member webpage. At this moment, the volumes from 1964/1965 until 1999 have been "harvested".
  • In the Driving Member archive I found a story where George Zdanko looks back on how he acquired his first DS420 limo. I added this to George's Cars and Owners page where photos of this car were already present.
  • Also in The Driving Member archive was a story from 1999 where George Zdanko describes his appreciation for the DS420. This was added to the English Language articles page.
  • On May 13, 2023 the 1970 Queen Mother car came up for auction. The auction house published a large series of colour photos which I have added to the Queen Mother's car page.
  • Christian Vanik published an article on his ex-Royal-Mews limousine in the Retrowelt magazine. The article is in German language, so it was added to the page with non-English magazine articles.
  • Various additions were made to the page showing the Model changes during production.
  • The May 1988 issue of The Driving Member published a few drawings by C.R.Mackay with his design impression for two different new limousines. The designs were dated in May 1983. This was added to the page A successor to the Daimler DS420?. Also in 1983 issues a short discussion appeared on weak points in the DS420 design. This has also been added to the A successor to the Daimler DS420? page.
  • Until 1985 the Parts Catalogues were published as paper printed books, but already since 1979 they were also made available on microfiche. The microfiche editions were updated every few month until the end of the DS420 production in 1992, and one was even published as late as 2000. I have compiled a list of fiche sets in my collection: See it here. Unfortunately, until now I have not found a cost effective way to get some of these fiches scanned to PDF or JPEG.
  • A colour chart specifically marked "Daimler Limousine" appeared on eBay. I was not able to win the auction, but fortunately the eBay pictures were good enough to use for this website. The item is undated but I estimate it to be from early 1983. It was added to the Colour and Trim page.
  • Craig Talbot published an article in the Classic Jaguar magazine about rustproofing a DS420, with many photos of specific details in the DS420 chassis. It was added to the page with English magazine articles.
  • Jaguar Gazette, the magazine of the Jaguar Daimler Club Holland, had a two-page article on a rare LHD landaulette that was for sale in NL. Nice photos, but several small inaccuracies in the text. It was added to the page with Non-English magazine articles.
  • An eBay vendor offered a MiniMarque43 scale model in an unusual bright red colour. This must have been a very early production. I bought the model and a photo was added to the scale models page.
  • The small Vanden Plas 1500 model was introduced at the London Motorshow of 1974. A series of press photos was made on the forecourt of Blenheim Palace, showing that 1500 plus a Double Six VDP and a DS420 Limousine. Several of these photos were already present on the press photos page of this site. Now I was able to add the press release text.
  • On two different occasions readers from The Driving Member have published a full page article on a DIY conversion to landaulette. I have added their stories to the Landaulettes page.

The files for this web site are maintained on a computer at my home. At irregular intervals a batch of new and/or modified files is transported to the computer that serves the domain www.myDS420.info. Minor changes and corrections are not listed. Maintenance to the page "Limo&Wedding Hire Companies" is not recorded.

This web site currently has 10268 unique pages, generated from 32453 files (3.01 GiB). The majority consists of the four Service Manuals (1492 pages), three Parts Catalogues (1261 pages) and eight Owner's Handbooks (800 pages). But one of the photo galleries also throws in a lot of weight with some 3000 photos.

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