Classic Car Buyer

TOUGH AT THE TOP

Think of ‘Rolls-Royce’ and you think of a marque that is the pinnacle of motoring so far as luxury, quality and engineering are concerned. But nothing can be entirely without peer or rival, even Rolls-Royce – the car of royalty. What about the car that royalty chose before Rolls-Royce? The marque that established itself as the car of choice for, well, the Establishment when Henry Royce was making crane motors and Charles Rolls was selling Peugeots. What about Daimler?

RENEWED RIVALRY

The old battle between the patriarch Daimler and the upstart Rolls-Royce titled strongly in the latter’s favour as Daimler struggled to restart production and find a new place in the postwar world. Declining sales and a failure to innovate led Daimler into the arms of Jaguar in 1960, leaving the once-dominant name to become only a badge engineering exercise on Jaguar saloons.

But combat was rejoined in the late 1960s when Jaguar announced its new XJ6 saloon model, which set new standards of refinement, ride quality, performance and handling

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