Vanden Plas was a coach builder founded by Guillaume Van den Plas in 1884.
They had a Brithish offshoot who worked under licence from 1913. From 1923
Vanden Plas were based in Kingsbury, London and were responsible for lots of
coach built bodies on cars such as Alvis and Bentley. They were taken over
by Austin in 1946 and became one of the various marques under the BMC group
along with Riley, Wolseley, MG, Austin and Morris. They then proceeded to
make upmarket versions of the BMC cars such as the 1100/1300 (Austin
America), Princess and Allegro (urgh). They also made limosines thru this
period too such as the VDP 4Litre-R ( R because of it's Rolls Royce engine)
and Daimler DS 420. The actually company closed it's doors for the last time
in 1979 but the name lives on and is simply used to designate top of the
range models now. Rovers and Jaguars come in VDP versions still.
Eddie
England
eddie@ratdat.com
www.ratdat.com
> What the hell is a "Vanden Plas" anyway???????;-)
> BZ
>
> Wish List:
> Money and time to fix up the junk that I have! Plus trade up on the
Jaguar
> to a newer model XJ8 Vanden Plas (wishful thinking!!)
> Sid
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