DAIMLER SP250 DART, IN RESTORATION, PRESERVATION AND SERVICE.

In the early 1960s the Metropolitan Police had a major problem to deal with in the form of a new craze amongst young men and their motorcycles. The ‘ton up boys’ as they became known would meet at a local café, put a record on the juke box and then race their bikes along a  predetermined route and attempt to get back to the café before the record finished; hence the term café racer  

Many of them died in the process and the current crop of Wolseley 6/90 and 6/110 Police cars just weren’t quick enough to catch the bikes. 

So the Met bought the Daimler SP250 Dart, a light weight fibre glass bodied 2.5 litre V8 sports car capable of 130 mph, much faster than many of the bikes. The system worked and with some proper enforcement the accident rate went down. 

A total of 26 Daimlers were purchased by the Met and to date a dozen of them have survived. 

Police spec Daimler SP250s were fitted with three speed Borg-Warner automatic gear boxes with a hold down lever for second gear, steel wheels instead of wire wheels, front and rear bumpers with over riders, a heater, electric windscreen washers and even an adjustable steering column.  

At the Police workshops at Northolt the cars were then fitted with a Winkworth bell, radio, 2 fire extinguishers, fog light and reversing light.