Tata may resurrect Daimler

Although Daimler is the name of Mercedes-Benz’s corporate parent, it is also a prestigious English car brand. Tata acquired the rights to this brand when it bought Jaguar. At one time Daimler made its own separate cars, but for the last forty years, Jaguar has mainly used the Daimler name for ultra-low volume premium versions of the XJ cars and aristocratic limousines. Now Tata may use this name to give Jaguar it own ultra-premium brand in the same way Mercedes has Maybach or BMW has Rolls-Royce.

The quick history of the brand is that at the end of the 19th century, a British company acquired the local rights to sell engines developed by German engineer Gottlieb Daimler, under his name. British Daimlers became competitive in racing and the preferred transportation for British royalty. By 1960 it was acquired by Jaguar, and British Motor Company acquired Jaguar a few years later. Since then Daimler has lived on mainly as a company that sells thinly re-badged Jaguars at a premium price. Meanwhile, Gottlieb Daimler’s own company, over a succession of merges, became the present-day Daimler AG, the parental conglomerate of Mercedes as well as other vehicle manufactures. As an interesting note, when DaimlerChrysler divested Chrysler and wanted to call the company only Daimler, they had to get permission from Ford who acquired rights to the name when it bought Jaguar.