motor cars

MOTOR CARS | 175

Daimler maintained its long-established position as royalty’s
favourite in the immediate post-WW2 years while grabbing
headlines in the popular press thanks to a succession of often
outrageous ‘Docker Specials’ featuring bodies by in-house
coachbuilder Hooper & Co. The driving force behind these
sensational styling exercises - all the more remarkable for their
appearance at a time of great austerity - was Lady Docker (née
Norah Turner), wife of the parent BSA Group’s millionaire chairman,
Sir Bernard Docker. Lady Docker had been appointed a director
of Hooper’s, with special responsibility for styling matters, and set
about transforming Daimler’s staid image into something altogether
more exciting, commencing with the spectacular ‘Golden Daimler’
which amazed crowds at the 1951 Motor Show.

The couple had married in 1949 when Norah was 44 and Sir
Bernard 53; it was her third and his second marriage. A former
dancer at the Café de Paris, Norah had been left well off following
her previous marriages to wealthy businessmen and had acquired
a taste for the high life. Declaring, ‘Daimler can’t survive on status
alone,’ she convinced Sir Bernard that the firm needed shaking up
and was duly given a seat on Hooper’s board of directors.

In an awe inspiring display of excess, Norah specified red crocodile

skin, blue lizard skin, gold stars and silver metallic paint. For the

first ‘Docker’ car – the 1951 ‘Golden Daimler’ – she used £900

worth of gold plating, and this at a time when that sum would have

purchased two Morris Minors and left enough change to buy a

small motorcycle. Justifying this extravagance, she explained: ‘It

was practically impossible to obtain chrome.’

The culmination of this succession of sensational Docker cars

was the so-called ‘Ivory White Golden Zebra’, a voluptuous

extravagance on the 4.6-litre, six-cylinder, DK400 limousine

chassis, which debuted on Hooper’s stand at the 1955 Earls Court

Motor Show. Lady Docker was particularly proud of the zebra skin

upholstery. When asked ‘Why zebra?’ she famously replied with a

flippancy that would have made Marie Antionette blush: ‘Because

mink is too hot to sit on.’