The car never had the ‘planned’ V8 fitted and it made do with a dry sump 4-litre version of the well-proven 6-cylinder, with twin plug head. More contentiously, it was also fitted with the weakest link from the older and lower-powered DBR1, its CG537 5-speed transaxle; clearly a big mistake and one admitted by John Wyer. Visually, and dimensionally, the body was the same as the DP214s but the bonnet line was 1.5 inches lower, enabled by the dry sump engine. The car was initially fitted with engine no. 400/215/1.
