Lady Norah Docker had a knack for marrying well, surpassed only by her talent for designing expensive cars (and getting someone else to foot the bill.)

She was born in 1906, and her father part-owned an auto dealership, and committed suicide when she was 16, so she went to work to support herself, working as a dance hostess at the Café de Paris in London.

She was smart, and made the most of her opportunities, using her job on the dance floor to befriend the 9th Duke of Marlborough, as well as a wine merchant, and when he died in 1945, she took up with the president of  luxury goods company who died in 1948. She hit the jackpot in 1949, with the third husband, Sir Bernard Docker, then chairman of a British Daimler.

She was made a director of Hooper’s, then Daimler’s body-building company, and bought Glandyfi Castle in Wales for £12,500, and furnished it with £25,000, both sums coming from company coffers. A £5,000 bill was also presented to Daimler for the mink-covered outfit she wore to the 1956 Paris Motor Show.

The parts normally chrome plated got real gold instead, the instrument panel was made of ivory, and the interior was covered in zebra hide. She used zebra “Because mink is too hot to sit on”

I remember posting the gold and zebra car years ago, but I hadn't heard enough about her then to look into the cars she designed https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2007/01/1955-golden-zebra-daimler-with-zebra.html

   

https://www.cartalk.com/blogs/jim-motavalli/lady-norah-docker-daimler-car-worlds-own-marie-antoinette

https://www.autoweek.com/car-life/classic-cars/g41517862/2022-audrain-concours-delegance-in-newport/