by John Quilter
Jaguar, who once owned Daimler, was in need of a much larger limousine car for the livery trade, funeral homes, for UK and foreign royalty and high government officials, so the DS420 was born circa 1962 on a 21-inch wheelbase stretch of the Jaguar Mark X saloon. The DS420 had a long-running history, the last being made in 1996, with some exported to Europe, the Middle East, New Zealand, and Australia. Over these years the car’s engines were up sized from the launch 3.8-liter XK to the 4.2 XK. The DS420 was in fact the last use of the famous XK engine first launched in 1948 in the XK120.
In the mid 1980s, Jaguar in the USA was only a two-car company, the XJ6 sedans and the XJS sport coupe, and there was consideration of expanding the range and marketing the DS420 here. This would entail considerable engineering modifications to comply with the complex and ever-changing US safety and emission standards. Work on this concept began as early as 1982, and this incorporated some other changes to suit the Middle East market such as uprated cooling system and air conditioning with front and rear controls. Many additional changes were needed such as large tail lamps (borrowed from the MGB), door intrusion beams, head restraints, and more robust bumpers. The list got longer and longer as time dragged on.
Finally, circa 1986, two US spec left-hand-drive cars were produced. A maroon one was sent to Jaguar’s Leonia, New Jersey, national headquarters, and a dark blue one to the west coast offices in Brisbane, California, where I worked. These were intended for trials with customers. But on the west coast no one could quite figure out how to approach, or interest, any potential buyers if Jaguar chose to move forward with the importation plan, so the car hung around our offices and the parts warehouse mostly unused and in the way. Besides me, none of the staff had any interest in driving this neglected beast as a company car. I borrowed it on weekends to keep the battery charged up and to stay on top of any issues it developed, which seemed to mostly revolve around the dual control air conditioning cobbled from the XJ6 Series III car.
I recall one year, perhaps it was September 1987, at the annual Palo Alto British Car Meet, when I took the limo to display it. Not that there were many potential buyers among the MG, Austin-Healey, Morris Minor, Mini, Land Rover, Lotus, and Jaguar sports car owners, but I always liked to show off the latest, or most unusual and rarely seen of the company products. This 500-car event was run for over 30 years by my good friend, Rick Feibusch and his wife Carolyn. Carolyn and a friend operated the gate, collecting the $20 entry fee, which was almost always in cash. I was paranoid of having so much cash on hand, I mean by the end of the day it could easily have been in the range of $10,000. They assured me it was safe as they periodically hid the money under the seat of their locked Chevy El Camino in a paper bag.
Well, toward the end of the day the organizers and crew were tasked with cleaning up and leaving the field free of trash so Palo Alto would welcome us back the next year, and this was done by driving around in cars and picking up any leftover litter—although British car enthusiast are notoriously tidy. Some of the detritus of the day was glass containers and aluminum cans, and after the park was cleared of cars, the resident homeless contingent emerged from the periphery of the park and descended to sort out the bottles and cans to turn in for a deposit.
It was Rick’s custom to take all the volunteer crew out to dinner after the event as thanks and to discuss how the day went. I thought that taking everyone in the limo would be a classy treat. Somewhere halfway to the restaurant Rick asked Carolyn where the bag of money was. She replied that it was in a paper bag on the floor of their car under the seat. At that, one of the helpers then said she had discarded ALL the materials on the floor after the field clean up!
Immediately, the big Daimler made an abrupt U-turn and hastened at best possible speed. Arriving back at the park with Handel’s Royal Fireworks blasting on the stereo, a full crew of passengers disembarked like a circus act and began pawing through the trash container much to the total amazement of the lethargic hobos standing nearby. Soon the bag was found by one of the crew and she shouted out, waving a fistful of $20 bills in the air, “I found it, I found it!” We quickly reboarded the Daimler and were off, trailing classical music, and leaving the homeless now fully alert and vigorously resorting the trash bin!
It was sometime after this that the powers that be in the Leonia headquarters said the limo should be sold. Our zone manager arranged a private sale to the owner of a Jaguar dealership in Palm Springs, and that is the last I heard of it. It would be interesting to know what became of this car. Being Palm Springs, I wonder if he ever sorted out the air conditioning?
'The DS420 Limousine' has 1 comment
October 30, 2024 @ 1:08 pm Rick Feibusch
Great article… The traditional picking up the paper and cans left on the field was considered “garbage polo” and usually preformed with our MG TD or a Morris Minor, but that year we needed to bring a lot of stuff to set up the meet so I drove our daily El Camino and worked with my God Daughter Missy, filling the passenger side floor with mostly paper. Had no idea that the money was in a big paper bag on the floor. Dumped it all next to the overflowing dumpster. We were frantic for a while. Another cute thing that the 420 limo had was an impact cutoff switch that nobody really knew about. When John was backing to the parking space at the restaurant, he lightly bumped the curb. When we went out to leave, the limo refused to start, or even turn over. We checked everything and there was no reason, then someone in the group remembered about this switch and I remember having to look it up in the manual how to reset the switch. It was a lovely dark blue and so much more civilized that the school prom showboats that most limos had become. I also remember that it had two radios, one on front and one in back, and while John Quilter was playing Handel up front with me, the gang in back had cranked up the Grateful Dead on theirs… Fun times, Moss was there with Ken & Barb Smith….