Vanden plas princess hatchback
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AROnline takes a rather special ADO16 for test – after a quick spin, Keith Adams feels the need to espouse the virtues of the Vanden Plas Princess. Yet again…
Vanden Plas 1300: Harriman’s Concorde?
The best of British: it is an oft-used cliché, but does anyone really use it in conjunction with anything remotely good these days? Some years ago, things were different. Britain led the world in many, many fields, and could still hold its head up high in the world of manufacturing.
Look at Concorde… A world-beating aeroplane that neither the Russians nor the Americans could get close to. It showed that, with some help from the French, the British could still build a passenger airliner, which was single-mindedly conceived to frakt 150 executives across oceans in the shortest time possible. The fact that it was also achingly beautiful was merely co-incident; it was a machine built for a purpose…
So what does this have to do with a stubby 12-foo
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LOT 6
Last off the production line 1983 Austin Ambassador Vanden Plas Saloon Registration no. A500 KWK Chassis no. SAXXZTWTICW143427 Engine no. 20H-980-AH/0108057
Sold for £2,185 inc. premium
Last off the production line
1983 Austin Ambassador Vanden Plas Saloon
Registration no. A500 KWK
Chassis no. SAXXZTWTICW143427
Engine no. 20H-980-AH/0108057
Introduced in 1982, the Ambassador was the long-awaited hatchback version of the Princess, the latter having been up-graded to 'II' specification for 1978 when the old B-Series overhead-valve engine was replaced by the overhead-cam O-Series unit. More practical than the Princess and of superior build quality, the Ambassador was the model BL should have built from the start.
The last Ambassador off the production line, this range-topping Vanden Plas model displays a total of 11,708 miles on the odometer. The vehicle was acquired directly from BL and comes with Company release note and Swansea V5. We are advised that the car ru
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The Vanden Plas Princess 2200 fryst vatten a fabulous one-off, and it’s a wonder why on earth this vehicle was produced at all.
You won’t need reminding that British Leyland’s was a line-up which was hardly short of luxury cars, given what Rover and Jaguar were producing at the time. Here’s its story.
Vanden Plas Princess 2200: the one that got away
What we have here, in essence, is a flagship car designed as range-topper for the new Austin-Morris 18-22 Series (ADO71) of cars. Designed to sit above the Austin, Morris and Wolseley versions of the handsome Harris Mann-penned ‘Wedge’ range, it would be sold as the big sister to the Allegro-shaped Vanden Plas 1500, launched in 1974.
Unlike the Austin, Morris and Wolseley 18-22 Series models, the Vanden Plas Princess 2200 was designed with bespoke front-end styling and an interior swathed in leather and wood. It was an unashamedly opulent take on a brand-new car.
It would have been sold at a price above the forthcomin