(first posted 8/25/2018) I wouldn’t classify it as such. I think it’s important to limit the Brougham classification to those primarily American (and sometimes foreign, usually Japanese) cars which really do it justice. This car–spotted in California by CJCars–has a gussied up style for sure, but it stops short of true Brougham. What is it, then? Well, m’dear, it’s nothing less than proper British luxury–in the form of one of its rarer exemplars.
Built from 1964 and 1968, and based on the ’61-’68 “A110” Austin Westminster, the Vanden Plas Princess 4-Litre R was powered by an F-head Rolls Royce engine and pitched as a somewhat of a performance sedan. Traditional, yes, but powerful and dynamic. The aluminum six’s 175 bhp was routed through the BorgWarner model 8 transmission, giving the car a top speed of 112 miles per hour (or as the Brits would say, rapid progress on the motorway).
Now for those who would like to insist this special sedan, beyond being merely British and conservative, is a Brougham, I won’t argue too vehemently. After all, more zealous fans of that sensation include seemingly any car they like in the category, much as some members of the Brown Car Appreciation Society will argue all varieties of beige and gold cars fall under the umbrella of brown, and it’s important to pick your battles. To that end, this front clip, with its ornate, intricate grille, makes a strong case.
Aside from real wood making the interior less typical, a lack of loose-pillow or otherwise tufted upholstery drags this Princess away from Brougham orthodoxy.
…but that’s okay, Brougham fans, you can still love this car anyway! Check out the vented quarter-light and other details like the (thick) fold-down armrest and leather storage pockets on the door; intimate and cozy, but clean and airy. A less notable change over the Westminster is the new roof line, which allowed the rear seat to be positioned back by about three inches. It does looks roomy from this perspective.
This very European-looking rear end, with a model designation referring to engine displacement, is decidedly un-Brougham. It’s somewhat reminiscent of a Mercedes W108, actually.
The Vanden Plas Princess 3-Litre and Austin Princess 3-Litre that are related to this car, in addition to the Westminster upon which they were all based, had essentially been in production since 1959 (well, 1960 for the VDP). The 4-Litre R was actually the result of an abortive collaboration with Rolls-Royce (called Project Java) in which Bentley was to receive a clone that look like the car pictured here–a sort of entry-level, sporty Bentley. For whatever reason, the project was canned, but it resulted the only production car outside the Rolls empire to receive one of its engines and reportedly taught the company a lot about monocoque construction, helping in the development of the Silver Shadow.
The Austin models were succeeded by the Landcrab-derived Austin Three-Litre, while Vanden Plas as a brand was discontinued under the industry’s increasing consolidation. Had that not happened, however, the Vanden Plas would have also been Landcrab-based.
As it turned out, the sort of upper middle-class customers who bought this car would now be directed toward Rover (a decision I understand; I’d prefer a P5 or P6 over the li’l limo pictured here).
But Rover, Rolls or Landcrab, the sight of either of those marques would be less special compared to this very rare 4-Litre R at curbside. It’s an incredibly lucky find, Brougham or not.
Related reading:
Curbside Classic: 1962 Austin A110 Westminster – Junior Jaguar Or English Fintail?
Cohort Classic: The Austin 3-Litre – Landcrab Imperial
Curbside Classic: 1965 Austin 1800 Mk1 (ADO17) “Landcrab”: Was it Best in Class, or Just Plain Ugly?
The nearest you could get to a Rolls Royce back then.They were usually seen shunting politicians about.My social climbing snob of a headmaster drove a 3 litre and his wife the laughable Allegro Vanden Plas(proof you can’t polish a turd).Shortly after he died she lost weight,dyed her hair blonde traded the Allegro in for a Capri and hooked up with a guy 8 years younger.
If you want to see an English Brougham check out a Vauxhall Viscount or Ford Zodiac Mk4 Executive,the nearest British cars came to Americans.There was also the E(for Executive) Cortinas,very popular in the late 60s and 70s.
Nice find and a good read,thank you Perry.I should think that’s probably the only one in America.
Appropriately depressing car for what sounds like a dreary marriage, but good for her for getting a younger guy after life with Mr. Allegro.
I’ve always thought of the Ford Granada Ghia (and possibly the Opel Senator/Vauxjall Royale) as being Europe’s Brougham(s).
Would you agree?
Very Brougham Roger a Mk1 Granada (Dagenham not Detroit despite being an American car fan) has been on my cars to have list.I had a very nice Mk2 2.8 GL auto
Agreed ! Both of them. Here’s a Granada Mk2 interior. More interior shots here. (Brown ! Green!) http://www.lov2xlr8.no/brochures/others/82granada/82granada.html
Definitely! No trees were harmed in the making of the pre-Ghia Granada GXL which obligingly came with lashings of fake wood. The Princess 4 litre R with its outmoded, previous generation running gear could best be described as a appalling waste of a decent engine! Like Perry, given the choice I’d plump for a Rover P5B. Chucking out the old straight six boat anchor and replacing it with a lightweight V8 made for a car that actually belied its appearance by handling remarkably well.
It appears that some inept body shop worked on the bonnet and driving light panel – they fit like a cheap shoe !
Vanden Plas built it was done by a coach building outfit
Hey my dad bought a 69 Ford Cortina right out of the showroom. He drove it for 10 years.
Not a bro-ham as it does not have the black vinyl roof.
The Ford LTD (1965) started the Brougham era according to this website. Precisely what makes any car Brougham is still unclear to me. However the interior seems quite up market from what one might expect from a basic car. Would a Rolls Royce be classified as a Brougham? If yes, then from what point in time would it have reached that status?
There are Brougham fans that have called top line Benzes of the ’70s Broughams. How they come to that conclusion, I’m not sure, but that is what inspired this post.
OK, after googling “Austin Westminster” I think that this car is not a “Brougham”.
The perfect example of a Brougham to me is the optional interior that Cadillac offered on the Fleetwood Sedan for 1974 called the Talisman. However I am not sure if that really exceeded the D’Elegance interior options that followed.
British interiors are known for real wood trim and leathers.
I’d think the Mercedes-Benz is not very Broughamy in a strict traditionalist sense of the word, but for German luxo-mobiles the S-classes and 7 series are about as Brougham as they get.
As far as newly made cars go, there is not much American that can compare with a new S-class or 7 series for a driver car, i.e. non-chauffered. I checked out a brand new 7 series and to me there is precious little in the luxury car world that can compare with that kind of long and low, powerful (v12), rear wheel drive luxo-barge. Actually, while its insanely plush (in a Germanic way) and luxurious as well as filled to the brim with all sorts of technological gadgets, I’d say it has some things in common with American cars of the Great Brougham epoch but plenty which puts it in a whole other category. Basically, this is a real luxury car-something that only the (actually) rich could actually afford. You’d have to have been one hell of a dock worker or factory man to have scrimped and saved to the point where you could retire and afford such a beast. Even in “base model”, I could barely afford it (unless I planned on living in it) without making extreme budget cuts and I’m comfortably middle class. The long wheel base models? Ha! No way in hell. A Fleetwood Brougham if I lived in the 80s in the same state in life or the modern equivalent, an XTS? Not a problem. The wife wouldn’t like to spend that much on a vehicle, but we could swing it easily and not have to live in it or do anything extreme to make the payments.
No, I think “Brougham” has to be distinguished from true luxury. A Cadillac is the kind of car that even blue collar workers in their retirement years can still fairly easily afford if they are smart with their money. Second hand Cadillacs are a dime a dozen and can be afforded fairly easily. You can get a few years old 7 series for around 40K with less than 100k miles, but there is no warranty and I’d hate to see any repair bills for it.
Precisely what makes any car Brougham is still unclear to me.
It can be a bit challenging to nail down. Obviously, if we’re being literal, any car called a “brougham” was a brougham. But the hallmark of the Great Brougham Epoch was the commodification of luxury trappings on lower and mid-price brands, as well as going overboard with certain “brougham” artifacts, like padded vinyl roof, opera lights/windows, a certain type of filigreed logos and such, etc…
It was a period when the trappings of traditional luxury cars from previous eras were incorporated on vehicles not really designed or intended to be true luxury cars. the “fake” or “affordable” aspect is a considerable part of it, since true luxury is intrinsically not a commodity for the masses; it’s essentially an oxymoron.
Hence, this Vanden Plas is anything but a “Brougham”, as it is exactly the kind of traditional but authentic (and exclusive) European luxury car that Broughams imitated, in an exaggerated way.
Then Cadillac, Lincoln and Imperial can’t go overboard with “brougham artifacts” as they are the standard for luxury, which the lower priced cars are trying to upgrade to, or appear to offer.
The 1958 Chevy Impala was a start to this period. The Impala came out as a higher end model and then the “full size” Chevy moved to the B body in 1959, with the Impala not far from the Bonneville for luxury.
I’m afraid that Cadillac, Lincoln and Imperial stopped being the “standard for luxury” about this time. Rising living standards and lower prices made them affordable to anyone with a half-way decent job. That’s what diluted their status. The standard shifted to import brands; it may not have happened overnight, and more slowly in some parts of the country, but it was an inexorable shift.
Ah, then Cadillac, Lincoln and Imperial are the mid-priced cars in your definition. I have long thought that Cadillac was at best a low end luxury car. The last true high end Cadillac’s were the series 80 and 90 models before WWII.
I have looked up the 1932 Cadillac base prices and converted them to 2014 CPI adjusted prices (via an inflation calculator). The base Cadillac is about $48000 while the Fleetwood V16 runs from $85000 to over $100,000 depending on body. I picked 1932 because that is the last year of the “real” Fleetwood bodies. After that the Fleetwood bodies are really Fisher bodies.
Cadillac and Lincoln had definitely begun their shift toward mid-price mediocrity in the 60’s, for sure. But I’d say that the last truly high-end examples were not the prewar cars, but instead the Cadillac Eldorado Brougham of 1957-60 (brougham before the debasement began) and the 1956-57 Continental Mark II (when it was very briefly its own brand separate from Lincoln). Both of those cars approached Rolls and Bentley not only in style and appointment, but also in price.
ats Fred: Using an inflation calculator becomes increasingly irrelevant the further one goes back, because the standard of living changed so much, dropping in the 30s and rising strongly in the 50s-60s. To go that far back, one needs to determine how many week’s wages it took to buy a certain car. Or compare it to more common cars. A 1932 Ford roadster went for $410. So that ’32 Cadillac roadster cost 7 times the Ford roadster. That was obviously totally out of reach for a working man. The V16 was a pure abstraction.
By the mid-late 60s, any guy with a half-way decent union job could afford a Caddy, thanks to longer loan terms and easier credit. And the fact that a ’65 Caddy cost less than twice what a comparable Impala cost.
Chris M. True But the Cadillac Brougham and Conti MkII were so rare that their impact on the market was negligible. And they had no effect on slowing the growth of European luxury brands.
Another way to look at it would be that the Ford Roadster was worth 20 double eagles ($20 gold piece at about .95 troy ounces a piece) and an eagle ($10 gold weighing half the double). If you figure gold at $1280 a troy ounce today’s money, that Ford was worth about $26,240. If the Caddy was seven times that, it was $2870 or $183,680 today’s money-definitely out of reach for any laborer at the time. The V16 of the same era sold for $6650 (and I don’t know if that was just for the chassis or the completed car, coachwork and all) which would make it worth approximately $426,138-by no means affordable to anyone. More like business tycoons and royalty only.
Thus, if your basic Caddy in the 70s was only a few thousand above a tricked out Caprice, they are no longer in the same category as their illustrious predecessors but they certainly bank off their halo car effect even still. All that Brougham gingerbread harkened back to the real stuff-the actual handbuilt coachwork for cars like the v16 to people who probably remembered them or reading of them when they were kids. As that collective memory faded, so did the appeal of the Brougham gingerbread I would say.
I do understand that the CPI really measures the value of the dollar based on a basket of goods. One needs to understand that the 1930s Ford is not the same thing as the full sized Ford or Chevy of the 60s. One should look at the lowest priced cars of the time, which were still around $2000.
Also the 1930s were a depression era with 25% unemployment or so. My parents lived through this time and a $1 per day was not a bad wage.
I really think that by the mid 60s the average wage earner was much better off than any time before World War two, so I am not exactly sure how to interpret prices. The price index did not double between 1932 and the mid-60s, it was the late 60s before prices doubled. Yet if one looks at the $500 Fords and Chevy’s of 1932 and then by the mid 60s a compact car is $2000, 4 times as much, what does this mean exactly?
I should point out that a low end Mercedes or BMW can be had for under $40,000. Rolls Royce are more like $250,000. While Cadillac is not in the high end market like Mercedes S class, the lower end seems about right.
I agree – this is not a Brougham but what the Broughams wanted to be measured against.
The expected audience for this car would not be seen near a true Brougham, and would maybe even say “nouveau riche ” or ” new money” quietly as the Continental de Ville Town Car Versailles Imperial Brougham went by.
“this is not a Brougham but what the Broughams wanted to be measured against’
Exactly.
For me, Brougham is about bolt on luxury vs engineered in quality. A more modern Brougham could be the Jaguar X Type. Take a Ford Mondeo, pump it full leather ‘n wood, add baroque coach work, and you have a new Brougham.
*Note* in British Brougham, the wood is always Burled Walnut, the leather is Connolly ( colour sprayed on, not dyed in) and the body is alway ‘coach work’ . Points are added if the term “bespoke”, or a reference to Purdey shotguns can be worked into the description of the “motor”.
That’s not really the case with the Jaguar X. They did a lot of work to it starting from moving from FWD to RWD, stiffening the shell, suspension geometry etc. Put it another way, suppose the first car on that platform was the X, then later the Mondeo was introduced, would you still go on about how it was a just a Mondeo or in that case consider that Mondeo was built on a high end platform?
Broughan is a cheap and nasty car blinged to the extreme with geegaws nobody asked for
I dont think it has the flash or the filligree needed for a brougham. It is quite instructive as to the folly of trying to build a flagship off an unremarkable five year old car though.
What a rare beauty is this 4 Litre R! Vanden Plas had also an affordable model in the ’80’s the Rover 2600/3500 Vanden Plas… Dozens of those could be seen on the roads throughout Europe till the mid ’90’s…till they disappeared.
There was also the distressing/amusing Princess 1100/1300, which is a BMC 1100 or 1300 with the Vanden Plas interior treatment and a ridiculously pretentious grille. That one sort of goes beyond Brougham into just Camp.
Perhaps the fact that both Jaguar and Rover/Sterling offered models called the Vanden Plas should tip this car into Brougham consideration?
Did you sit/drove in an early ’90’s XJ? Because I can compare it with a classic american Brougham… Classic features and displacement built inside… It’s almost like or alike… Brits done it well! If the measure is a so called “Brougham”…
Vanden Plas was a coach builder absorbed into BMC, they could call anything a Vanden Plas model honestly, bare bones ADO16 trimmed like a real car, yjats yer actual broughan. This model began as an upscale car retrimmed by Vanden Plas. I owned one of those 6/110 Westies they were a quiet fast cruiser stock
I wouldn’t have applied the Brougham label to this. While it may indeed be trying to suggest the engineering excellence and performance of its betters, it nonetheless probably did want to be what (it hoped) it looked like.
A real Brougham, in its classic phase at least, doesn’t give a sh*t :).
Whatever it is, I really like it. At first glance, I thought “Ahhh, an old Mercedes.” Then I looked closer. OK, and read the title.
I really love the classic shape and the tasteful British-style trim, both inside and out. Also, it is more powerful than the average larger English car, a plus here in the States.
I never knew anything about these, so thanks for the education.
Vanden Plas style big Austins werent particularly rare here those big Austins sold well to well off farmers and the like, The Wolseley version is the better car it had the better interior without the parts problems the RR engine presented.
An uncle ran a 6/110 Wolseley from new in 63 until the mid 80s when he died, it towed his boat and caravan reliably its entire life.
There are some cars that look good in white with whitewalls… but this definitely isn’t one of them. It desperately needs the two-tone paintjob.
Why limit the Brougham label to American or Japanese cars? The Brougham was originally a English creation. It was created by a London carriage builder for renowned 19th Century statesman Henry Brougham and thus this type of carriage was hence forth known as a Brougham.
So I think it is perfectly OK to consider a British car as a Brougham.
Daewoo ALSO hanged the name “Brougham” to one of its flagship model as well. I tried IT for only few miles. What to say about it? 2.2 Litre InLine 4 GM engine with a 4 speed Hydramatic transmission paired with mild suspension. The electronics inside reclamed under the hood everywhere the Bosch and Siemens insignias. The interior was like Buick Park Avenue’s from the early ’80’s. I was confused. From the outside it was a mild combination of a mixture of Opel Rekord/Senator and Holden Statesman. The front fascia was perhaps borroved from Daimler Benz and (maybe) Buick, depends on the grille finish if it was attached by the Supersalon or a Brougham name… Anyway it was an intriguing driving experience of “how Koreans does IT”…
You could fly one too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Brougham
This is the second car I’ve photographed for the cohort that I didn’t know what it was when I first spotted it. The other was the 1948 Triumph 1800 Roadster. I saw the Vanden Plas from my balcony at night and couldn’t figure out what it was. I don’t feel that it is a brougham because, other than the radiator shell that isn’t a radiator shell, it is basically an honest design. It doesn’t have landau bars or vinyl for a non-folding top, fake vents, fake wire wheels, brothel upholstery, or exaggerated proportions. It seems to me that it is the sort of real luxury car that broughams played on.
That garbage array of non functioning equipment is the US idea of luxury actual luxury is something real not bling.
The Van den Plas family, coach builders, originally came from Belgium. Willy van den Plas was one of them, here’s a vintage ad from their French division. With a genuine Coupé de Ville !
And the real (1923) Van den Plas Brougham.
Wiki indicates that there were Bentley’s with Vanden Plas coachwork.
The Van den Plas Brougham above had a Lanchester chassis, 21 hp.
More here, including a Bentley:
http://uniquecarsandparts.com/heritage_vanden_plas.htm
Also Jaguars, Austins, Delahayes, Minervas, Bugattis… Some of the classiest European chassis of the 30s-40s. But VdP was bought by BMC after WW2 and incorporated in their badge-engeneered range.
That 4-litre R does stand out as the best of the lot, though. Rolls straight 6 and relatively restrained styling… Nice, even though it was a total commercial flop. The Radford estate version (only one was made for Ms Betty Windsor) isn’t bad either.
Interesting – I hadn’t seen that wagon before.
Idi Amin called her Mrs Quinn.
Wiki as usual has part of the answer,
Bentleys with open Vanden Plas bodies were the favourite setup to race at Le Mans, they were coach builders, they constructed bodies for any chassis the customer presented with, actual custom built cars came out the other end. it was the antithesis of what Henry Ford pioneered.
Genuine luxury cars are built one at a time by craftsmen not slapped together by Bubba on an assembly line.
These were actually nice cars well finished and not cheap to buy or run. If anything went wrong you were at the mercy of RR for parts a situation that saw some of these converted back to C series Austin power or one Ive seen with SBC 327 transplant. I had the cheaper A110 Westminster in cream and rust very comfortable car for its age and easily able to maintain 105mph for the entire Ruakaka straights some 25 miles it was however equipped with a BW DG auto box which ate reverse meaning its days ended in a demolition derby where the terminal rust became obvious as the rear broke off at the back window.
I don’t think this car fooled anybody back in the 60’s. Put a Rolls engine (that wasn’t used in any other domestic car) in a tarted-up Austin Westminster and you’ve still got an Austin ! Not really a commercial success. Never mind the “Brougham” tag – it should have been tagged ” Lotus” for lots-of-trouble……
It was an inlet over exhaust valve engine from an Army vehicle,very old fashioned an engine type even Harley Davidson stopped using before the war.There were a couple put into an MG (I think) 2 seater but it never got past the prototype stage
Rover persisted with that valve arrangement untill they discovered the Buick alloy V8 and the Rover 2000 4 banger.
It was architecturally related to the B40/B60 engine, but the FB60 in these cars was quite a bit different — it was all-alloy, for one.
BMC asked the Healeys to try putting the FB60 in the big Healey after the MGC-based Austin-Healey replacement was canceled. The Healeys modified a 3000 Mk3 accordingly, also widening the body (literally by sectioning it horizontally and inserting a plug in the middle) and making changes to meet U.S. interior safety standards. It worked rather well — there were several prototypes, a couple of which still survive — but Rolls-Royce had already started disposing of the tooling and Sir William Lyons wasn’t at all keen on the idea of Austin-Healey offering E-type performance for a lot less money.
It’s fun to imagine an alternative world where BL never happened, and cars like that might have been produced!
That one was just BMC, not British Leyland. Jaguar merged with BMC in 1966, almost two years before the BLMC deal was finalized.
Lyons refused to fit better engines to his Jaguars, the tried a Daimler 4.5 V8 in an MK10 or similar size Jag and in went way better than with the Jag six which had pre WW2 origins, he alone stopped any other sporting attempts by BMC/BL that might out run a Jag.
What an incredible find this is! I was completely unaware these were made in LHD, though the simple, symmetrical dash does seem like it could have been created with conversion in mind. I’d say it’s definitely NOT a Brougham–yes, it does have some of the qualifications, but it’s simply a proper British luxury car. Even if the grille carries a degree of self-importance, the R-R engine behind that grille seems to justify whatever vanity may be on display here. And overall, it shuns ostentation–no vinyl roof, no excessive chrome, no overly pillowy interiors, wire wheels, or fender skirts. Just a clean design. And by the way, a British car of this era should NEVER have whitewalls.
It’s also a little known fact that precisely one of these was made as a 2-door, for Sir Winston Churchill in his later years. Unfortunatley that car is no longer with us as it was destroyed by use in banger racing, with the owner full well knowing what he had and taking perverse pleasure in destroying a one of a kind, irreplaceable vehicle. Makes me ill just thinking about it…
I too was unaware these were made in LHD and I suspect such examples are very rare.
It cannot be a Brougham though, it simply lacks the sheer scale of a brougham and also the whole package is altogether too tasteful to warrant such a description.
That tail reminds me more of a Mercedes W111 coupe than the 108 sedan.
It sort of looks like a 60’s Mercedes and a VW Type 3 Notchback had a love child. Real wood and wide whitewalls do not a Brougham make. No vinyl top, tufted bordello interior or superfly treatment. More of an old world British luxury vibe. Nice find
I’d concur, no vinyl top, opera lamps/windows, landau bars, hood ornament, no v8 and not American made. British luxury car? Yep, no doubt. Brougham? In a loose sense of the word, sure but certainly not the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions “Brougham”.
I’d say if a person is unsure of whether a car is a Brougham or not, they need to compare it to a Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham/Fleetwood Talisman as well as the Eldorados of the same eras. Lincoln Continental Town Car or Mark series for non-Cadillac inclined. The closer it is to the Cadillac/Lincoln Broughamtastic flagships the more Broughamy it is. If its not American or doesn’t have all the Baroque-ish trappings, its awfully hard to seriously call it a Brougham.
What a great find. What an ugly car. What an underwhelming engine. Wish they’d done something chunky under bonnet with the 3litre body.
Brits have their own tangent on broughamism: Riley Elf and Wolseley Hornet.
Nice, CJinSD
Well, the engine was at least interesting — it would probably have worked nicely in the abortive Austin-Healey 4000, although it wasn’t really as polished as you’d expect for luxury car duty.
I agree it was interesting. Their most significant attempt at moving away from simply badge engineering these top range models. Unfortunately, this was the sleeper that never really got out of bed.
I tend to think the 4-Litre R also suffered the same problem as all the old-school British barges of the time, which was that it they looked and felt very old. I don’t claim to have driven a 4-Litre, but the general consensus of contemporary testers was that it felt like a ’50s holdover compared to the P6 or even the big Vauxhall and Ford.
The 4L R could wind up to a higher top speed than the Vauxhall or Ford luxury offerings but it was heavier thirstier and a lot more expensive more in the Humber Super snipe market place which was diminishing at the time.
The later and smaller Allegro Vanden Plas might be more Brougham since it involved slapping a formal grille on a malaise era econobox and it was often seen with a vinyl top.
+1
That’s a BBLB (Baaaad BL Brougham)! If shoddy build quality is also a quintessential Brougham-esque characteristic, then this ticks all boxes.
See also: ’75 Wolseley Six
2 of BL’s many Deadly Sins,most owners of these cars burned shoe leather rather than rubber.There’s a horrible parallel with GM,a headlong rush to FWD,odd styling,poor build quality and once great marks flushed away
See, if we mean “Brougham” in the Ford LTD/Chevrolet Caprice sense, I don’t think I would put it in that class. I’d be more inclined to draw a parallel between 4-Litre R and the 1975 Cadillac Seville: enough parts-bin stuff to make the cognoscenti sneer, but too complicated to honestly call just another grille-and-badge job. (The Vanden Plas 1100/1300, on the other hand…) Also, like the Seville, the 4-Litre R was not at all cheap. It was a £2,000 car, which was about the price of a Rover P5. The difference between the 4-Litre R and the Cadillac, of course, is that the Cadillac was a big hit and the Princess was a very tough sell.
The Ford Executive and Vauxhall Viscount were much more obvious British examples of the type. The Executive, for instance, was really just a fancy Zodiac, which was a Zephyr V6 with better trim and lots of extras. On the other hand, it was almost £500 cheaper than a 4-Litre R or a Rover 3-Litre, so if you weren’t getting Real Class, you at least weren’t paying for it.
These Vanden Plas Princess also came without the R motor having merely the Austin 3L powerplant giving the original body 4 trim levels in ascending grades.
While the early 70’s LTD did get upgraded from the 65 model, the Caprice never really reached what I would call Brougham status, unless fold down center arm rests count.
I’ve wondered what happened to Pininfarina’s lovely prototype that SHOULD have become the ’57 Nash. Now I know! There she is!
I had no idea these were made in LHD too. But I guess they would have offered them in Continental Europe as well as the UK. There are a few around still here – my mechanic did an engine transplant on one within the last few years, fitting a Holden 202 straight-6. The RR engine was prohibitively costly to repair, and the pre-’96 Holden sixes were only straight-6 they could find that was narrow enough to fit between the VDP’s chassis rails. I like the VDP for its rarity, but the Wolseley 6/110 has the more appealing styling.
Back in the 1960s a wealthy landed gentry farmer friend of my father bought a Vanden Plas.He previously owned a 1955 Oldsmobile.The Plas was in an army style green colour.I remember my father telling me that it had a Rolls Royce engine and it was not a very reliable car.My father always bought new International Harvester bulldozers and wheel tractors and trucks.He needed a new American bulldozer but there were none in stock so he bought a new BTD20,an English Rolls Royce engined International.The BTD20 was so troublesome he returned it to the dealer and waited until an American version could be shipped to Australia.Many years later I saw a car the same in the Blue Mountains and I thought it looked like a tarted up Austin.
this is my uncle’s relative,Earl Lonsdale’s brougham.He had a fleet of eleven Napier cars and was visited twice by the German Kaiser who gave him a Benz motor car and a German driver.He later shipped the Benz back to Germany to have the chrome fittings replaced with silver.The brougham body was originally fitted to a Daimler and was so tall because the Earl was 194 centimetres tall and wore a top hat.The interior fittings are ivory and the original brougham roof is made of elephant hide.
Lonsdale had the body removed from the Daimler and fitted to this new Rolls Royce Silver Ghost.
I don’t actually think they changed the roofline on this model from the A-110 Westminster / Woosley Six body. This was a similar, but longer body, with a more formal C-Pillar than the “Farina” Austin Cambridge/Morris Oxford/MG Magnette/Riley 4/72/Wolseley 16/60.
Nobody else sees a Volvo 164 front clip?
Spotted back in 2016 at my favourite scrappy…
Interior
I’m impressed that RR managed to get 175hp out of a 244-inch six back in the 1960s, and with an F-head layout! Imagine if they put the exhaust valves upstairs as well…