The Daimler DB18 was launched in 1939 with a new 2.5-litre 70bhp overhead-valve six-cylinder engine which went into numerous military vehicles during the war.

In 1948 the unit was put into the new DB18, a luxury saloon with acres of wood and leather.

Transmission was by Daimler’s traditional pre-selector gearbox allied to a fluid flywheel which gave it a top speed of 80mph with a 0-60mph time of around 17 seconds.

The standard saloon had coachwork by Mulliners of Birmingham but drophead bodies by Charlesworth, Abbott, Barker and Tickford were also available.

Upright, formal and stately as a galleon, you couldn’t fault the quality and the DB18 proved popular with billionaire Indian maharajahs and South-East Asian Royalty too; even Winston Churchill had one.

By the time production came to an end in 1953, around 4,250 had been sold.

Presented in Blue over Cream with a Blue leather interior.

This example has been used for weddings in its recent life, the engine fires into life on th...