Darts are still overshadowed by the E-Type, but have been making up ground

This Daimler is like no other: a drastic plastic cocktail of a sports car with a menacing grouper mouth, fanciful fins, the road manners of a tractor and that beautiful turbine-like 2.5-litre V8 designed by Edward Turner, creator of the famous Triumph Speed Twin motorcycle engine. It’s a measure of the car’s hurried development that Daimler top brass hadn’t even checked rights to the Dart name in the USA, where the badge was registered to Dodge.

Rebranded as the SP250, the Dart might just have saved Daimler if it had hit the mark in the US market where it was primarily aimed. But this last-ditch effort fell short, and in 1960 it brought Daimler into the clutches of Jaguar, where the Dart was overshadowed by the E-type. The car is a quaint, distinctive curio – and rare, too, with only 2650 built.

If this has some appeal, that gorgeous V8 will really win you over to this eccentric glassfibre-bodied device. Best buys are later, less bendy B- and C-spec cars. Today, in market terms Darts are still overshadowed by the E-type, but they have been making up ground in recent years.