The Daimler Armoured Car was a successful British armoured car design of the Second World War that continued in service into the 1950s. It was designed for armed reconnaissance and liaison purposes. During the postwar era, it doubled as an internal security vehicle in a number of countries.
When the British Daimler Company took over BSA in 1939 they inherited two superb armoured vehicle designs. One was the famous Dingo scout car, which was already in production, the other this armoured car, which was still in the design stage.
This car was on display at Duxford.
The car at Duxford has mismatching chassis and turret numbers and was built using parts obtained from range wrecks in the late 1970s.
There is also a Daimler Mark II Armoured Car at the Bovington Tank Museum.
The Tank Museum’s example is a Mark II. It is painted in the markings of a unit that served in the successful counter insurgency operations against communist terrorists in Malaya in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The multi-barrel smoke grenade launchers fitted to the turret were a post-war modification.