Vanden Plas is the name of a company of
coachbuilderA coachbuilder is a manufacturer of bodies for carriages or automobiles.The trade dates back several centuries. Rippon was active in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, Barker founded in 1710 by an officer in Queen Anne's Guards, Brewster a relative newcomer , formed in 1810. Others included Hooper, H. J...
s for specialist and up-market automobile manufacturers. It originated in
BelgiumThe Kingdom of Belgium is a country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations, including NATO...
in 1870 as Carrosserie Vanden Plas.
The company first appeared in the United Kingdom in 1906 when
MétallurgiqueMétallurgique were cars made by SA L'Auto Métallurgique, Marchienne-au-Pont, Belgium between 1898 and 1928. Before making cars, the company had made railway locomotives and rolling stock....
cars were imported with Vanden Plas coachwork. These were generally admired and in about 1910 Warwick Wright (now
PeugeotPeugeot is a major French car brand, part of PSA Peugeot Citroën, the second largest European carmaker.Peugeot's roots go back to 19th-century coffee mill and bicycle manufacturing. The Peugeot company and family is originally from Sochaux, France. Peugeot retains a large manufacturing plant and...
dealers), a British motor company, purchased the United Kingdom rights to the Vanden Plas name and established Vanden Plas (England) Ltd.
Vanden Plas is the name of a company of
coachbuilderA coachbuilder is a manufacturer of bodies for carriages or automobiles.The trade dates back several centuries. Rippon was active in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, Barker founded in 1710 by an officer in Queen Anne's Guards, Brewster a relative newcomer , formed in 1810. Others included Hooper, H. J...
s for specialist and up-market automobile manufacturers. It originated in
BelgiumThe Kingdom of Belgium is a country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations, including NATO...
in 1870 as Carrosserie Vanden Plas.
History
The company first appeared in the United Kingdom in 1906 when
MétallurgiqueMétallurgique were cars made by SA L'Auto Métallurgique, Marchienne-au-Pont, Belgium between 1898 and 1928. Before making cars, the company had made railway locomotives and rolling stock....
cars were imported with Vanden Plas coachwork. These were generally admired and in about 1910 Warwick Wright (now
PeugeotPeugeot is a major French car brand, part of PSA Peugeot Citroën, the second largest European carmaker.Peugeot's roots go back to 19th-century coffee mill and bicycle manufacturing. The Peugeot company and family is originally from Sochaux, France. Peugeot retains a large manufacturing plant and...
dealers), a British motor company, purchased the United Kingdom rights to the Vanden Plas name and established Vanden Plas (England) Ltd. During World War I the company became involved in aircraft production and was bought by the Aircraft Manufacturing Company based at
HendonHendon is a London suburb situated north west of Charing Cross.-History:Hendon was historically a civil parish in the county of Middlesex. The manor is described in Domesday , but the name, 'Hendun' meaning 'at the highest hill', is earlier...
, London. In 1917 a new company, Vanden Plas (1917) Ltd., was formed. The company seems to have struggled to get back into coachbuilding and in 1922 went into receivership. The exclusive UK rights purchase seems also to have gone as in the early 1920s the Belgian firm was exhibiting at the London Motor Show alongside the British company.
The rights to the name and the goodwill were purchased by the Fox brothers who moved the company from Hendon to
KingsburyKingsbury is a town in the London Borough of Brent, North West London. Its name means "The King's Manor".-History:Kingsbury was historically a small parish in the Hundred of Gore and county of Middlesex. Until the nineteenth century it was largely rural with only scattered settlements. Oliver...
and built on the contacts with Bentley that had been made. Between 1924 and 1931, when Bentley failed, Vanden Plas built the bodies for over 700 of their chassis.
In the 1930s the company became less dependent on one car maker and supplied coachwork to such as
AlvisAlvis cars were produced by the manufacturer Alvis Car and Engineering Company Ltd of Coventry, United Kingdom from 1919 to 1967. The company also produced aero-engines and military vehicles, the latter continuing long after car production ceased....
,
Armstrong SiddeleyArmstrong Siddeley was a British engineering group that operated during the first half of the 20th century. It was formed in 1919 and is best known for the production of luxury motor cars and aircraft engines.-Siddeley Autocars:...
, Bentley,
DaimlerThe Daimler Motor Company was a British motor vehicle manufacturing company, founded in 1896, and based in Coventry. The company became a subsidiary of BSA in 1910, and was acquired by Jaguar Cars in 1960....
,
LagondaLagonda is a British car manufacturer, founded as a company in 1906 in Staines, Middlesex by the American Wilbur Gunn . He named the company after a river near the town of his birth Springfield, Ohio...
and
Rolls-RoyceRolls-Royce Limited was a British car and, from 1914, aero-engine manufacturing company founded by Charles Stewart Rolls and Henry Royce on 15 March 1906 as the result of a partnership formed in 1904. In 1971, Rolls-Royce was crippled by the development of the advanced RB211 jet engine, resulting...
. The company also updated its production methods and took to making small batches of similar bodies.
With the outbreak of war in 1939 the company went back into aircraft work and coachbuilding stopped.
Austin, BMC and BL
With peace in 1945 the company looked to restart its old business, but a surprising new customer came along.
AustinThe Austin Motor Company was a British manufacturer of automobiles that rose to be a major motorcar brand, the dominant partner after merger with Morris in 1952 but declining after absorption into the British Leyland Motor Corporation, and its subsequent troubles.-History:-1905 - 1918: Formation...
wanted to produce a luxury car and approached Vanden Plas. In 1946 Vanden Plas became a subsidiary of the
Austin Motor CompanyThe Austin Motor Company was a British manufacturer of automobiles that rose to be a major motorcar brand, the dominant partner after merger with Morris in 1952 but declining after absorption into the British Leyland Motor Corporation, and its subsequent troubles.-History:-1905 - 1918: Formation...
and produced its
A135 PrincessThe Austin Princess was a series of luxury cars made by the Austin company from the 1940s to the 1960s.-Princess naming:The original A125 Austin Sheerline introduced in 1947 was assembled by Austin at their Longbridge factory. In addition to this, Vanden Plas in their North London works bodied a...
model. From 1958 this also started to involve chassis assembly and the Austin (by now
British Motor CorporationThe British Motor Corporation was a UK vehicle company, formed by the merger of the Austin Motor Company and the Nuffield Organisation in 1952...
or BMC) board recognised Vanden Plas as a motor manufacturer in its own right and in 1960 the Austin Princess became the Vanden Plas Princess. Also in 1957/8, Vanden Plas were asked by
Leonard LordLeonard Percy Lord, 1st Baron Lambury KBE was a captain of the British motor industry.-Early life:Lord was educated at Bablake in Coventry...
to add luxury fittings to a batch of
Austin A105 WestminsterThe Westminster series were large saloon and estate cars sold by the British Austin Motor Company from 1954, replacing the A70 Hereford. The Westminster line was produced as the A90, A95, A99, A105, and A110 until 1968 when the new Austin 3-Litre took its place...
cars, beginning the practice of using the company's skills and name for badge engineered (and genuinely improved) luxury versions of many of the BMC (and later British Leyland (BL)) cars such as the
1100/1300ADO16 is the codename for the development of what became the Morris 1100, a small family car built by the British Motor Corporation and, later, British Leyland...
range and the
AllegroThe Austin Allegro is a small family car that was manufactured by British Leyland under the Austin name from 1973 until 1983. The same vehicle was built in Italy by Innocenti in 1974 and 1975 and sold as the Innocenti Regent...
(known as the Vanden Plas 1500 and 1700). The proposed Vanden Plas version of the 1800 did not go into production.
From 1985 to 1989, Austin Rover made upmarket Vanden Plas models within its Metro,
MaestroThe Austin Maestro is a compact-sized 5-door hatchback car that was produced from 1983 to 1994, initially by the Austin Rover subsidiary of British Leyland , and from 1988 onwards by successor organisation Rover Group. The car was produced at the former Morris plant in Cowley, Oxford. It was...
and
MontegoThe Austin Montego is a British mid-size saloon car that was produced by the Austin Rover subsidiary of British Leyland , and its successors, from 1984 until 1994. The Montego was the replacement for the Morris Ital, to give British Leyland a modern competitor for the Ford Sierra and Vauxhall...
ranges; a limited edition of 500 only models were produced at Longbridge called the Austin Metro VP 500.
Jaguar and Nanjing Auto
JaguarJaguar Cars Ltd., better known simply as Jaguar is a British luxury car manufacturer, headquartered in Coventry, England. It has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Indian company Tata Motors Ltd...
merged with the British Motor Corporation in 1966 to form
British Motor HoldingsBritish Motor Holdings Ltd was a British motor company created in an attempt to halt the decline in Britain's manufacturing base in the 1960s.-History:...
(BMH) which in turn merged with the Leyland Motor Corporation to form the
British Leyland Motor CorporationBritish Leyland was a vehicle manufacturing company formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd . It was partly nationalised in 1975 with the government creating a new holding company called British Leyland Ltd which became BL Ltd in 1978...
in 1968. The Vanden Plas name continued to be used by Jaguar on its Daimler variants, and American cars. The name ultimately ended up with the
Rover GroupRover Group plc was the name that was given by the British government, in 1986, to the state-owned vehicle manufacturer British Leyland or BL....
, and Jaguar was forced to stop using it in the United Kingdom, though it continued to do so in America. The Daimler Double-Six Vanden Plas became, simply, the Daimler Double Six, and the Sovereign designation was transferred to Jaguar. Jaguar was subsequently acquired by
FordThe Ford Motor Company is an American multinational corporation based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury brands, Ford also owns Volvo Cars of Sweden, and a small stake...
as were the North American rights.
Production of the Vanden Plas Princess limousine stopped in 1968 when Jaguar introduced the Daimler DS420 Limousine (Jaguar had acquired
DaimlerThe Daimler Motor Company was a British motor vehicle manufacturing company, founded in 1896, and based in Coventry. The company became a subsidiary of BSA in 1910, and was acquired by Jaguar Cars in 1960....
in 1960). The DS420 was produced at the Kingsbury Lane Vanden Plas factory until it closed in November 1979.
Placed on Jaguar models the Vanden Plas label still signifies Jaguar's most luxurious variant. In addition, Jaguar uses the Vanden Plas name in markets where, for licensing reasons connected with the former DaimlerChrysler, the Daimler name cannot be used. These include the United States and some Middle East countries. The last British car to have the Vanden Plas name was the
Rover 75The Rover 75 is an executive car produced initially by the Rover Group at Cowley, Oxfordshire, UK, and later by MG Rover at their Longbridge site in Birmingham, UK...
.
The rights to the design of the Rover 75 cars and the MG Group were purchased by a Chinese firm, Nanjing Automobile. Ford purchased the Rover name from
BMW, is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company. Founded in 1916, it is known for its performance and luxury vehicles. It owns and produces the MINI brand, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.-Company history:...
to protect the Land Rover name from Shanghai Automotive who wanted the brand. The Vanden Plas name (for outside
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
) and many other Leyland names were purchased by Nanjing Automobile.
General
- Vanden Plas history & models at "The unofficial Austin Rover resource"
External links