First long drive in the Daimler

May 7, 2026

Back at the Easter weekend, I did my first long drive in the Daimler. Up until recently I had been mostly using the car for shorter drives, until I got it sorted out. After the recent service, a lot of the issues I was concerned about were now sorted out. I wanted to see how the car performed on a much longer day trip.

I drove up to the blue mountains via Bells Line of Road and then took the road from Oberon to Goulburn before heading back home on the motorway.

Overall the car did really well, and I found it to be very comfortable on a much longer drive. The drive was a good mix of suburban streets, back roads and motorways. This drive took me over 1,000km with the car, which is probably the most its has driven in less than a year since going from Melbourne to Adelaide back in 2005 as a new purchase by a previous owner.

The driving experience really is very good. The power is effortless and I think the 3.31 rear end ratio really suits the nature of the car. I’ve never driven one of the later HE V12s, but they had much taller ratios for fuel consumption. The ride quality is excellent and it handles both back roads and the motorway equally well. It started to rain, so I took it very easy around corners.

When driving the car, its easy to forget it’s well over 50 years old. Comfort and ride are superior to a newer car. Handling isn’t, but that’s not what this sort of car is about. There are only a few areas that showcase the age of the car. The first is wind noise. The drag coefficient of the series 1 XJ isn’t all that good and there is a lot of wind noise a freeway speeds. This doesn’t bother me a great deal, but its quite noticeable against an 80s car, and especially something modern. I am curious if a series 3 is much different.

The next is the windscreen wipers, which are a bit average. Glass coverage is a bit mediocre, and there are only two speeds. The final one is the presence of quarterlight windows. Since the A/C isn’t working, I see this as a big positive. On a rainy day, I was able to have the quarterlight open, and get plenty of airflow with minimal water ingress. Its a shame they died out.

The drive also identified a few things I need to sort out on the car over time:

There is a really annoying rattle from behind the dash somewhere. I fixed one of the a/c vents being lose, so its something else.
I lost my gauges (volt meter, fuel, temperature, oil pressure).
My Tachometer sometimes stops working
I can’t get my newly installed rear view mirrors to aim correctly.
The 2000’s era CD player is terrible and seems to work only through one speaker.
There is no way to charge a phone on a longer trip. I used a power bank.
At the last fuel stop close to home, The car ejected some coolant after sitting for about 3-5 minutes.
My wiper blades won’t wipe all that well, and while the fast speed works well, the slower speed is a bit hit and miss. Sometimes I have to got fast speed first before going to slow. They also don’t park perfectly.
The kickdown doesn’t seem to work.
I had a slightly soft brake pedal down a long steep section.

The above seems like a long list, but only a couple of them are urgent. I filled up three times to be safe, and the consumption wasn’t too bad. The first tank was probably a bit off from having the fuel tank replaced. I got 16l/100km out of the second and 14.5l/100km out of the third. Not bad given the reputation of these cars for thirst.

Ultimately I want to keep any of my cars in the condition that I could get in them and drive to Melbourne and back with no issue. I am getting much closer to that with the Daimler, but still have work to do.