Jaguar merged with British Motor Holdings and British Leyland then regained its independence in 1984. In 1989 it joined the Ford Motor Company's Premier Automotive Group but in 2008 Tata Motors of India acquired Jaguar Land Rover and with them the Daimler brand.
As of 2006, the use of the Daimler brand was limited to one model, the Daimler Super Eight.
Confusingly, the name Daimler is used by two completely separate groups of car manufacturers. The history of both companies can be traced back to the German engineer Gottlieb Daimler who built the first four-wheeled car in 1889. This was the origin of the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, now Daimler AG or Daimler Germany, which has also manufactured vehicles since the 1890s but no cars with the name Daimler since 1908.
Gottlieb Daimler died in 1900, having himself sold licences to use his own name, Daimler, in a number of countries. The licence granted in 1891 to the British F R Simms & Co included the right to use the Daimler name in Great Britain and in 1896 the British Daimler Motor Company was founded, without any tie to Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, to make a quite separate vehicle.
The aristocrat car dealer Emil Jellinek had legal problems selling German Daimlers in France, Panhard-Levassor also used the name as they used German Daimler engines. Jellinek proposed to Daimler Germany that he would place a large order if they would make a car for him that bore his daughter's name, Mercedes. Daimler Germany now recognized they shared their right to the name Daimler with many others and to avoid further legal action the name Mercedes was adopted in 1902 for all the cars built by Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft itself. The name Daimler was last used for a German-built car in 1908.
The Coventry company, never linked to the Stuttgart company having received its right to its name from Gottlieb Daimler, kept the Daimler brand for the vehicles it built.
The Vienna Austro-Daimler business has survived as Steyr-Daimler-Puch, despite being absorbed by General Dynamics in 2003.
