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1992 Daimler 4.0 Armoured Ministerial Car [XJ40] Comments about this vehicle| Author | Message |
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◊ 2007-12-22 01:40 |
Archive footage of Tony Blair enroute to Buckingham Palace to request permission from the Queen to form a government after the Labour Party's historical landslide victory in the 1997 General Election. Being a J-reg it is either a 1991 or 1992, although registration J372DYL doesn't appear on the DVLA database. This is a Daimler, I saw this car in a recent documentary about Tony Blair and I clearly saw the Daimler badge on the boot lid. For the dramatisation in the film however (where Blair is played by Michael Sheen), they use a Jaguar Sovereign: /vehicle_54781-Jaguar-XJ6-XJ40.html -- Last edit: 2012-11-27 16:02:41 |
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◊ 2007-12-22 10:40 |
Thats a Daimler Majestic, a specially made version for ministerial use. If you look closely you can see black areas round the glass, this is because it was armoured. It was also slightly longer than the standard XJ40 with a raised rear roofline & with those Rolls-esque wheel trims. -- Last edit: 2007-12-22 10:54:39 |
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◊ 2012-11-27 16:16 |
This is not actually a Daimler Majestic, see this: http://www.xj40.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1316 (looks like they took the screen capture from this page  )They also say that the first XJ40 Daimler Majestic wasn't built until 1993. And if you look at this one Link to "www.gumtree.com" you'll notice Blair's car doesn't really have a raised roofline like this. As a 1991 car, this will be after they changed the 3.6 litre engine to a 4.0 and before they released the 6.0 V12 Double Six version. -- Last edit: 2012-11-27 16:21:55 |
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◊ 2012-11-27 16:24 |
Plate was genuine issue May-July 92, but can't trace a record anywhere. Noticeably LWB, although non-Majestic evidence seems well founded. |
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◊ 2012-11-27 16:32 |
I wonder if that's because this was used by Prime Ministers. I don't think there was normally an LWB version of the XJ40, but this is a specially modified car. |
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◊ 2012-11-27 22:53 |
Suddenly a light switches on: government-owned cars are not road taxed - they are excluded (but do have a windscreen disc explaining their non-taxed status) therefore they do not get a DVLA record for the public to check. They also do not require commercial insurance - there is a government dispensation and a central department which would pay out on any claims. However a DVLA record would be created for vehicles sold on after government use at the time of sale. This AFAIK applies to all parts of the Civil Service, not just Whitehall or security vehicles. J372DYL is therefore probably either still a government car or was re-registered when disposed of. Or as an extreme suggestion, scrapped after government use to prevent any knowledge escaping about its security features. |
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◊ 2012-11-27 23:11 |
@dsl: I've read that security companies scrap surplus vans so that they don't get sold on outside the industry and end up in the hands of thieves. |
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◊ 2012-11-29 16:46 |
Actually I think I have read about some armoured ministerial cars being sold on but how many people are going to want something that's very heavy and thus slower and much more thirsty. Recently the Queen's personal Daimler was up for sale http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motoring/queens-jaguar-daimler-sale not sure how bulletproof it is though. -- Last edit: 2012-11-29 16:51:02 |
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