Born in England, Palmer grew up in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, where his father was chief engineer to the state-run railways.

[2][3] Palmer returned to England in 1927 where he started an engineering apprenticeship with Scammell, the commercial vehicle builders,[3] and studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic.

[2] While still training, in his spare time Palmer designed and built a sports car for the racing driver Joan Richmond and called it the Deroy after a tin mine his father owned in Mozambique.

[1][4] With the outbreak of war in 1939, Gerald Palmer was reassigned to work on portable anaesthetic apparatus, the Oxford Vaporiser, for front line use.

He initially had doubts when he found out who he would be working for as it meant moving from the motor industry heartlands to a small company not specially renowned for innovation.

[3] Except for the gearbox and rear axle, Palmer designed all the parts for the car, including a new flat-four engine and unit body.

Body production had been outsourced to Briggs and they turned them out as ordered even though sales did not match resulting in a large stockpile and drain on Jowett's cash flow.