1960 Daimler Majestic "Minor"

[akku]

Some of you may recall I bought a Rover P6 to be a sensible daily driver. Its a nice car but I am not feeling like I am bonded with it. It also "feels snug on me" so this is off to find a new home in the new year.

The replacement for the Rover is a Daimler. This is the last of a long line of full sized Daimlers (there is no coincidence it looks like a grown up Conquest) and its been tickling me since I saw it advertised a while ago on Marketplace.

The Majestic is an "inbetweeny" car, the full size 6 cylinder Daimlers have a lineage which starts with the Regency and runs through the 104 in 1958. Then a refresh on this platform widens the body, enlarges the engine to 3.8 litres and also introduced the first 4 wheel power disc brakes in a saloon car. An automatic transmission was the only available 'box, ending the Fluid Flywheel and preselector which Daimler was famous for. It was quite the package, and in 1960 it was revised again to enlarge both the boot and the engine - the Turner designed 4.5 litre Hemi was introduced which powered the renamed "Majestic Major" until its end in 1968.

This is one of the last Majestics with a 6, but not late enough to have gotten Power Steering. I took a look at the car and left it a couple of weeks then phoned back with an offer. The car needs some TLC but its not a wreck. Its evidently been a wedding car for some years and I think the original colour was "Carmine Red", possibly over white or grey in a 2 tone. There is some pog in the thing, but not too much (I hope!) and the floors, chassis, everything else all seem good, its just the rear doors and one front wing in particular that is a victim of bad repairs.

6 cylinder Majestics are fairly rare now, only made for a couple of years, not sold in big numbers and then overshadowed by the Major.

This one certainly doesn't feel "snug!"

Picked the thing up Sunday after a lovely train trip into the wilds of Humberside.










Nottingham station is quite nice















Some of the rural Humberside ones less so.




The car was for sale on a trade car lot











The car wasn't running super enthusiastically, and the guage looked low despite the seller's assertion "I recently put £20 of petrol in there" so I made the first petrol stop





But they only had E10, so I put £20 in it and noted that the needle hardly moved up from the Empty....





Not long later I found E5, so filled it up with another £90 or so...

By this time the car was running better. It was bowling along nicely in the A roads at 60-65 One thing it didn't like is roundabouts. It seems reluctant to down shift. There is no 1-2-3 arangement on the shifter. you have Drive and Low. Low is first gear. Drive is all three. A separate control gives "intermediate gear hold" but didn;t seem to operate, or I was doing it wrong. Kickdown doesn't seem to work either. To add to the delights the quadrant is in a weird order: Park, Start, Neutral, Drive, Low, Reverse. This actually makes some sense when parking and so on you can click neatly from 1st to reverse with minimal faff. The "Intermediate Gear Lock" also acts as an anti-roll device when applied on first gear, so the car won't roll back on a hill start.

The more I drove it the better it was running, although it runs very cold.

I suspect a good service, tune and then see how it goes. Possibly the kickdown lever is miss adjusted or disconnected.



So I refueled myself too...







and made it home with no issues...

[ironmighty07]

Ah the delights of Scunthorpe and Barnetby!! Seen that for sale for a while but bought far too much other rubbish of late!
Glad it drive back fine(guessing A1 based on the Diner?))

[drive]

Never seen one before; not online,nor in a magazine,and certainly not in real life. Looking forward to interior pictures,engine bay...

[akku]

Dec 11, 2023 18:14:57 GMT drive said:

Never seen one before; not online,nor in a magazine,and certainly not in real life. Looking forward to interior pictures,engine bay...

Its a fairly rare car, especially as a 6.













There ya go!

[akku]

Dec 11, 2023 18:13:43 GMT ironmighty07 said:

Ah the delights of Scunthorpe and Barnetby!! Seen that for sale for a while but bought far too much other rubbish of late!
Glad it drive back fine(guessing A1 based on the Diner?))

I did the A15 mostly and then cut up the A1 to get to the OK Diner.

It really wasn't happy when I first picked it up. Very hesitant, one of those "oh god what have I done now?" moments but by the time I got home it was rnning pretty nice, I suspect it had old fuel in it, and it needs a service.

There are few specialists for these, I think people are put off by the size of them and the "ex wedding car" isn't a strong look. And the wedding hire market is not what it was! So I got in with a reasonable offer and by then I think he just wanted it gone.

[drive]

Interior looks to be in good nick! Nice woodwork,comfy seats,sheepskin floormats...what's not to like
Engine bay dry and good access too. You bought a good one !

[DarrenW]

What a lovely old thing!

[ovimor]

Corr..... "what'll it do, Mistta"

Elegance in Spades 🤩

OVIMOR

[vulgalour]

Boaty McBoatface. What the pictures don't convey that well is the presence these have in person. I've only ever experienced one a few years ago and they're quite the event.

Oh hang on, now I look again I realise what I saw isn't actually the same as what you've got there.

[akku]

Dec 11, 2023 19:03:51 GMT vulgalour said:

Oh hang on, now I look again I realise what I saw isn't actually the same as what you've got there.

Yeah thats a Majestic Major. I think its also a DJ series which is the rare as heck long wheelbase version. Because the Majestic isn't big enough as it is! That one will have the V8. The key tell tale of the Major is the nostril air intakes, and the boot is extended for greater capacity.

[homersimpson]

Thats a lovely car, it looks huge!

The FK number plate on it suggests its from the Worcester area originally, they used to have a lot of the records for those plates at the Worcester records office and so you might be able to get some information on its original ownere.

Do you know what type of gearbox it is as you mentioend a seperate speed hold which soulds like the Borg Warner DG series gearbox used in the MK2 Jag and others, if so then I do have the original Jaguar manual for this transmission if you need to know anything specific. The kick down on the Jag is a rod that needs to be adjusted and the speed hold is an electrical solenoid. Different versions of the DG gearbox have different configurations, some start in first other start in 2nd.

[petroholic]

I never heard of a Majestic before. I like this... a lot!

[akku]

Dec 11, 2023 20:50:44 GMT homersimpson said:

Thats a lovely car, it looks huge!

The FK number plate on it suggests its from the Worcester area originally, they used to have a lot of the records for those plates at the Worcester records office and so you might be able to get some information on its original ownere.

Do you know what type of gearbox it is as you mentioend a seperate speed hold which soulds like the Borg Warner DG series gearbox used in the MK2 Jag and others, if so then I do have the original Jaguar manual for this transmission if you need to know anything specific. The kick down on the Jag is a rod that needs to be adjusted and the speed hold is an electrical solenoid. Different versions of the DG gearbox have different configurations, some start in first other start in 2nd.

Yeah its a Borg Warner and I believe its the DG.

Oh, I may have to take a trip to the Worcester Records Office then! See what I can find. I got an out of the blue email from the Daimler Lanchester OC registrar for Conquests about my blue car, a previous owner had approached the club to ask if they knew where it was.... So I got some old photos and a bit of history from him on the car which was nice. Maybe the same could happen on the Majestic.

[redratbike]

can’t say i have ever noticed one before

i have definitely heard the term minor and major in regard to daimlers though

bet it’s a comfy cruiser

[homersimpson]

I found a link to what is available, see page 29 for your series of registration numbers.

www.explorethepast.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Vehicle-Licensing.pdf

[Enbloc]

Thank goodness its not black!

I really like it in that off white even if it is dangerously close to wedding car white!

[PhilA]

Dec 11, 2023 21:37:19 GMT akku said:

Yeah its a Borg Warner and I believe its the DG.

Oh, I may have to take a trip to the Worcester Records Office then! See what I can find. I got an out of the blue email from the Daimler Lanchester OC registrar for Conquests about my blue car, a previous owner had approached the club to ask if they knew where it was.... So I got some old photos and a bit of history from him on the car which was nice. Maybe the same could happen on the Majestic.

It's quite the car. Epitome of English, by the standards of the world at the time.
I thought Borg-Warner had settled on PRND2L by '60 (even though that wasn't standardized until '71). It's the same shift pattern as mine (NDLR) but with Park and Start tacked on the top, pretty common in the States at the time.

Phil

[crockpot]

That is a splendid gentleman's carriage.

[akku]

Dec 12, 2023 2:37:02 GMT PhilA said:

Dec 11, 2023 21:37:19 GMT akku said:

Yeah its a Borg Warner and I believe its the DG.

Oh, I may have to take a trip to the Worcester Records Office then! See what I can find. I got an out of the blue email from the Daimler Lanchester OC registrar for Conquests about my blue car, a previous owner had approached the club to ask if they knew where it was.... So I got some old photos and a bit of history from him on the car which was nice. Maybe the same could happen on the Majestic.

It's quite the car. Epitome of English, by the standards of the world at the time.
I thought Borg-Warner had settled on PRND2L by '60 (even though that wasn't standardized until '71). It's the same shift pattern as mine (NDLR) but with Park and Start tacked on the top, pretty common in the States at the time.

Phil

Yeah the Hyrdomatics had that sort of a shift pattern as I recall. It kinda makes sense really. The lack of an intermediate position / passing gear doesnt!

[v8ian]

Nice Buy, Must admitI haven't seen one for a few years,
Most of these big Daimlers were used as limos, and never very popular as a computer/family car. The probable reason whey the car is so unfamiliar to so many people is they were Banger Raced, they are pretty robust, and for that reason "Hunted down" by the banger people, Thus made almost extinct.
EDIT, I noticed couple of nights ago there was a 4.5 Major Engine on marketplace, sounded like a can of worms, but you never know, www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/875125980766558/?ref=search&referral_code=null&referral_story_type=post&tracking=browse_serp%3Acb858e45-8f8c-4745-80d9-4f79de9be369

BTW, according to FB its still for sale?