A successor to the Daimler DS420?

Various "design studies" have been presented for a possible successor to the Daimler DS420 limousine.
This page covers studies and speculations that appeared during the production years of the DS420, or shortly thereafter.

Cliff Ruddell worked in Jaguar's drawing office in the seventies and eighties. After the limousine assembly was brought to Browns Lane in 1979, Keith Cambage, the head of the limousine operations, requested many small body changes to the model. But no funds would be allocated to a large scale makeover. In 1983 Cliff spent some spare time sketching a few possible designs: starting from the existing body he first drew a new shape resembling the old design, and from there on he went to a modernised design, based on then current XJ40 technology. Shown with the sketches are Keith Cambage's handwritten comments (click to enlarge).

Cliff's website showing these sketches is at www.cliff-ruddell.co.uk. They are reproduced here in larger resolution with his kind permission. Cliff introduces these sketches on his website as follows: "the Daimler DS420 Limousine was a milestone design, when it was released in 1968. After the construction of a running prototype under Sir William's direction, the lion's share of the body design was completed by Jack Dunnett in Body Engineering".

The next drawing is his "artist's impression" of the new limo as a proud descendant of the Majestic Major DR450 and the DS420, with the three spires of the Coventry skyline in the background.

In Spring 2023 the magazine of the French Jaguar Drivers' Club published an extensive interview with Cliff, (in French language) with even more illustrations than we have on this page. I have added an English translation of the text pages.

Obviously, the year 1983 brought many discussions about the need to upgrade the DS420. One of these was triggered in The Driving Member, the magazine of the Daimler and Lanchester Owners' Club. In the February 1983 volume, Sandy Marcus, well known in DLOC circles, published a column in which he listed "Some of the weak points", and announced a contest for a new design. He had sought the cooperation of Jaguar Cars, and in August of that year the winners would be presented, with prizes. Three month later, in the May 1983 volume, Declan Foley from Sligo, Irish Republic, came up with a reaction, listing even more important alterations. Both texts are shown here (click to enlarge). But has there ever been a follow up as promised in Marcus' column? The later Driving Member issues have nothing on this contest anymore.

In 1985 the Autocar magazine (June 19, 1985) published a speculative article (shown right) about a possible face-lift of the DS420 body by designers from Aston Martin in Tickford.

In its May 1988 issue, The Driving Member magazine published two proposed designs by C.R.Mackay. He called them "Owner Driver Versions". The larger of the two designs even has occasional seats. Note that the drawings are dated 'May 1983'. It is unknown whether a link exists between this design and the "contest" as announced in the discussion pieces of the previous item on this page.

The picture to the left appeared in "Sovereign", the official international magazine of Jaguar Cars, issue 25 (Q1-1999). The text with the picture was:  |  A styling concept for a new Daimler, developed by Jaguar Cars designer Mark Phillips, has been unveiled. Inspired by the Daimler Majestic Major and DS420 limousines, the Millennium model was created using state-of-the-art digital technology. The concept car was designed for Mark's final year project leading to a BA (Hons) degree in Transport Design at Coventry University. The course is seen by Jaguar's director of Styling, Geoff Lawson, as a vehicle to allow Mark to experiment with a new design process and develop his own product ideas. "Although the company has no immediate plans to reintroduce a bespoke limousine, given the company's tremendous growth at the moment, anything is possible," commented Lawson.

The same model was shown in the Jaguar Monthly and in The Driving Member magazines (see below for the full Driving Member article):

Still another design comes from the Coventry University Transport Design - Degree Show 2003. Note that it is not the same model as shown above! This illustration came with the following caption:  |  Also exhibited was a 40% scale see-through display model of an advanced Daimler limousine by Alex Chan and Stefano Canale. The model was developed by the pair while on placement last summer with Jaguar and will be displayed within the company's design reception area in future.

The picture to the right is from Neil Bottrill, free lance designer in Manchester. Click on the image to see his design portfolio (2007) for a DS420 successor.

In January 2001, almost 10 years after the end of the DS420 production, and some 8 years before Jaguar, under Ford ownership, stopped using the Daimler marque (2009), Barry Pladdys, the editor of the Driving Member magazine, explained why in his opinion the Daimler marque had no commercial future anymore. Re-entering the limousine market is an explicit part of his observations. This article was published in the January 2001 issue.

Three month later, in April 2001, Tony Bagley, who is the liaison between Jaguar and the DLOC, published a reaction.

Back to the indexpage.