Daimler EL24 Limosine – 1938

Description:

This is 1 car is from a collection of 14 cars entered into the auction from a private collector.

This car was purchased by the current owner for his extensive collection of vehicles and is a 1937 Royal Daimler having covered only 31,242 miles in its lifetime. It was built in Coventry and fitted out by Daimler to HM King George V1 specifications; it then went out of royal service in 1946 after being laid up during the war years, to its first recorded owner as in the old beige log book. Although most of the Royal Daimlers were straight eights, there was at least one EL24 in the Royal household according to the records. Later in 1950 it was recorded as being owned by First Avenue Garage in Sussex where it served as a chauffeur driven hire car. It was then owned by a Mr Griffiths, who was regularly chauffeured from his home in Chipping Campden to London and on his demise circa 1970, ownership passed to his daughter Mrs Woodley. She then loaned the car to a motor museum in Stratford-on-Avon, where it remained for some 17 years. The official record of this cars manufacture was lost in the war time blitz on Coventry, the build and the fact of its Daimler body is the specification to have been the car delivered to HM King George V1. In 1987 the car went under a programme of loving restoration and maintenance costing in excess of £12,000, since that date the car has covered just over 3,000 miles. During this work a Buckingham Place pass was found down in the door panel. In 1998 EUU 297 was selected to participate in a parade of classic cars through the centre of Coventry, celebrating 100 years of the motoring industry’s association with that city and was driven to and from Coventry from West Sussex. In 2001 while with the current owner it was hired for a TV film series of six episodes called the Cazalets, as the Old Brig’s Daimler, a trilogy by Elizabeth Jane Howard. This was made by the BBC and the American company, Home Box office. It was then used again in a film released in 2003 by the same production company, for a film called The Gathering Storm, staring Albert Finney and Vanessa Redgrave. This was a film about Winston Churchill’s life in politics, building up to the Second World War. These two films are with the car as a memento of this event in the cars history, as the car was a regular visitor to Chartwell.

The car itself is running very well and starts on the button every time, the pre-select gearbox does its job and is very smooth considering its age. The driver’s speaker horn still works connected to the passenger cabin which has various items such as an original silver covered bottle of smelling sorts, a proper cigar lighter and rear blind that is operated by the chauffeur. The passenger cabin was re-upholstered in Bedford Cord, as it would have been in its original specification for its first owner. EUU 297 has been well looked after by its current owner and has been carefully and sympathetically maintained in line with its history, however it is suggested that any prospective new owner does their own investigation on its provenance. The car has had a full service prior to the sale and is a very regal conveyance indeed.