Image: BMCautos
Image: BMCautos
Image: BMCautos
Image: BMCautos
Image: BMCautos
If you have a taste for a period Rolls-Royce or Bentley but do not have the budget for either, you could always compromise a tad bit. BMC was the largest British car company of its day, in 1952 it had 39% of British output, producing a wide range of cars under brand names including Austin, Morris, MG, Austin-Healey and Wolseley as well as commercial vehicles and agricultural tractors.
Image: BMCautos
At the time BMC wanted to take on the upmarket Jaguars with the Austin Westminister and Vanden Plas Princess R. That plan didn’t work but as time went by Jaguar was acquired by the BMC stable in 1966, removing the need to compete. From the perspective of Jaguar, the sale to BMC became firm in September, Sir William Lyons, the managing director and co-founder of the company saw the merger as the best way for Jaguar to ensure supplies of bodies from Pressed Steel, which supplied Jaguar and was now owned by BMC.
The styling of the vehicles emanated after BMC commissioned Pininfarina to work for it, developing a range of Italian-bodied vehicles. The most prestigious was the Westminister A110 with a C-series straight-six engine. The A110 was the replacement for the A99, it had the same body but externally the main difference was the horizontal grille bars. The headlamps lost their bright surround and were replaced with a normal surround. The side light indicators changed to a rectangular housing, all these simple changes gave the car a more pleasing appearance to the front.
Image: BMCautos
The Vanden Plas was also available with the Austin engine. The Princess series of cars were a luxury offering from British manufacturer Austin. Princess succeeded Austin’s upscale 28 Ranelagh model as the company’s flagship luxury car. Standard cars wore Austin badges, but upscale models were moved from Austin’s assembly line over to the Vanden Plas coachworks. Vanden Plas was a subsidiary of British Motor that marketed its brand of luxury cars based on various offerings from BMC. The frontal treatment of the more expensive model featured a square grille with added chrome, more akin to a Rolls-Royce but retained the traditional Pininfarina vertical rear lighting. To differentiate from this, the Princess R switched to horizontal rear lamps. The cars could accommodate six occupants thanks to the bench seating.
Image: BMCautos
The standard 3,0-litre British Motor engine was replaced with a larger 4,0-litre engine from Rolls-Royce. This inline-six was aluminium a short-stroke variant of the B-series Rolls engine. The engine from Rolls-Royce was offered to BMC as Rolls-Royce was contemplating more volume sales. Following the success of the Silver shadow after its release in 1965, Rolls Royce put a halt on the engine supply and the Vanden Plas remains the only volume production that uses the Rolls Royce engine in any other car besides the Rolls-Royce.
Availability and pricing
With many of our classics becoming scarcer sights on the roads and some being exported overseas owing to the weak rand, there are none presently available in the local classifieds. In the UK, several pristine examples are looking for new owners. The prices are generally R200 000. This fits in reasonably well when we consider the cost of going all-out and buying a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow would be about R400 000 in South Africa.
Find the full story in the April 2022 issue of CAR Magazine.
Keyword: ARCHIVE: 1960s Budget Bentley from BMC and Vanden Plas