Engine – 9.7-Liter Knight Sleeve-Valve Inline Six-Cylinder
Coachwork – Hooper Limousine
Chassis Number – TD 6314
Engine Number – 12214

“The Representative British Car”

Created at the behest of King George V of England whilst he was still Prince of Wales, this Daimler was commissioned and took delivery in June 1910, shortly after his accession following the death of Edward VII. The first of three 57 HP Daimlers acquired for the royal fleet, chassis TD 6314 carried enclosed limousine coachwork by Hooper. Its Knight engine used sliding sleeves to open and close the intake and exhaust ports in place of conventional poppet valves. The quiet operation of this arrangement suited a formal limousine, and the engine would give the car a second purpose after it left royal service.

Following its retirement from the Royal Mews, the Daimler was acquired by Charles Yale Knight, inventor of the valve system it employed. As The Autocar reported in April 1925, Knight shipped the limousine to the United States for exhibition. Willys-Overland subsequently used it to promote the sleeve-valve design fitted to its own Willys-Knight automobiles, citing the Daimler’s years in royal service as evidence of the engine’s durability.

Willys-Overland donated the limousine to the Los Angeles County Museum in 1930. It remained there for twenty years before the museum traded it to Lindley Bothwell, whose collection at Rancho Rinconada in Woodland Hills became its home for more than half a century. Robert E. Petersen acquired the Daimler in 2006, and it subsequently entered the Petersen Automotive Museum. In 2011, the museum exhibited it in the Prewar Preservation class at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

The limousine remains largely original to this day, retaining three of its original leather fenders, original interior, and the Hooper nameplate bearing the coachbuilder’s royal warrants. Now in the Singleton Collection, the Daimler preserves both the coachwork made for royal service and the engine design that brought it to America.