Owning a car that was not only a witness to history, but part of that history, has to be a buzz. Meet `George' a 1934 Straight Eight Daimler V26 limousine whose rich leather seats may have hosted the best of royal butts, possibly some of those at the 1937 coronation of King George VI.

In this era, Daimler was the preferred carriage of choice of the British Royals – along with a few other royals around the globe. And young Prince Albert was keen motorist. But, he was not a keen King. As such he has become known as the reluctant King and therefore his coronation on May 12, 1937 stands out as an unusual event within the eccentricities of the Windsor royals.

So this strange course of events led to the vehicle now known affectionately as `George', who lives in Queensland, Australia, being at the coronation of King George VI at Westminster Abbey on that day in May 1937. George, of course, wasn't the only Daimler there. According to owners, Lindsay and Susan Price, George was one of about 145 Daimlers brought in for the occasion. Around 45 of these were the limousine-bodied variants.

Our featured car appears to have been first registered in Australia in Canberra in 1946 with a compliance plate dated accordingly. Lindsay believes it is possible the car was brought to Australia's political capital possibly as a consulate car. However, what is intriguing about George is the bonnet emblem: an eagle atop a globe. According to Lindsay this was the emblem of Eagle and Globe Insurance that had an association with Daimler – and purchased Daimlers, and added their own signature on the car by way of the bonnet emblem.

It is easy to see why royalty were attracted to the Daimler. Forget every other description, the vehicle simply looks Important, with a capital I. As an onlooker you would know whoever was inside this car was a VIP . Possibly, as we now know, the King of England. Although, having said that, looks can be deceiving. Daimler Hire Company which Daimler developed then sold – ordered 10 of these limousines – for its clients – who may not have been five star.

It was a scaled-down version of the German Vulcan-Fottinger coupling (also known as the Vulcan-Sinclair coupling) already used on diesel-engined ships, although it had been used on buses since 1926.

The drive was initially intended for use with a cone clutch and conventional gearbox. This meant it was not necessary to declutch the car when stationary and when combined with the pre-selected gear it proved to be a bullet-proof system even the worst of drivers could not destroy. It was also smooth for this era and Daimler adopted the system from 1931 and continued to use it until the mid-1950s. Daimler, by the way, is an old British company, formed in 1896, and is not related to Daimler of Mercedes-Benz connection.

After his time in Canberra, George came into the possession of the Palfreyman family who donated him to the now defunct Gilltraps Motor Museum, at Kirra on the Gold Coast, Queensland in the 1950s. When Gilltraps closed down in 1997 the vehicle collection was auctioned and George was purchased by an owner in Gympie, who sold the car to Lindsay and Susan in 2000. In the meantime much of the car had been restored to it current impeccable condition.