Daimler Fifteen

The Daimler Fifteen was a saloon car at the low end of the Daimler range, offered between 1932 and 1937 and named for its tax rating of 15 hp. It was the first Daimler for more than two decades with an engine that breathed conventionally through poppet valves, the older Daimler-Knight sleeve-valve technology having been overtaken. Its 6-cylinder 1.8-litre engine was developed from the 4-cylinder 1.2-litre Lanchester Ten, whose shorter chassis and bodies Lanchester sold with the same Daimler semi-automatic transmission. It was the first Daimler offered at less than 500 pounds since the First World War, a standard chassis costing 350 pounds, as Daimler went downmarket in the Depression. In August 1934 it gained a 2-litre engine, then 2.2 litres in 1936 and 2.5 litres two years later.