It’s impossible to overstate how revered this variant of the ADO16 is in Japan, but I trust those of you who read my posts will know that already. Aside from the obvious retro obsession exemplified by the likes of Mitsuoka, which make more than a passing nod at this very car, I’ve had the dubious honor of authoring two pieces (here and there) for this website regarding some of the full-fledged ‘90s Nissan march-based “tribute cars” that this country has spawned. This is probably due to the fact that the supply of genuine Vanden Plas Princess 1100/1300s is, sadly, limited. Eventually though, the real thing appeared classically parked on the side of a curb, to coin a phrase. And it’s definitely worth a closer look.
I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for these. The basic BMC bones of this machine, engineered by Alec Issigonis and Alex Moulton, styled by Pininfarina and produced by the largest carmaker in the country, certainly makes for a solid base on which to badge-engineer a bunch of lookalikes. The number of names and marques that were attached to the ADO16 is pretty impressive – Austin, MG, Morris, Riley, Wolseley, Authi, Innocenti… Kind of crazy, but that was BMC in the ‘60s.
The Vanden Plas variant was something of an afterthought. The former London branch of a major Belgian coachbuilder, Vanden Plaaaah (most Brits seem to think that’s how “Vanden Plas” should sound, for some unfathomable reason, so let’s humour them) was bought by Austin right after the Second World War to manufacture the company’s Princess limousines. By the late ‘50s, the limos started losing their Austin badges and gained Vanden Plaaaaah ones, leading to the creation of a new marque.
The big 4-litre Princess carried on loftily, but soon Austin (now BMC) found they could add models to the Vanden Plaaaah portfolio. One was a high-end version of the BMC Farina saloon, the 1959-64 Vanden Plas Princess 3-Litre (it was a 2.9 actually, but who’s counting?). This was replaced by the same car with a Rolls-Royce-made all-alloy 4-litre (well, 3.9 really, but…) straight-6.
This all made sense, as the Vanden Plaaah name was being used on big luxury saloons and giant limos (as well as some senior Austins, but more as a trim level thing). The humble ADO16, by comparison, was a world apart. But it did hail from the same corporation, and it seems the director of the Kingsbury works took a shine to the little car when it debuted in August 1962 as the Morris 1100.
As is evident all I’m sure, the ADO16 was an evolution of the BMC Mini. It was engineered by the same people and thus shared some of that cars’ characteristics – FWD, transverse engine, very spacious cabin for its size – but also featured a completely new independent suspension, the Hydrolastic, which sort of took the Citroën 2CV’s concept, but tamed it to achieve a far less alarming amount of body roll. It also looked great, thanks to Italian-infused styling. In short, it was ready to be a smash hit, and it largely was.
The Morris was soon buttressed by the sporty twin-carb MG; the me-too Austin arrived in September 1963. At the Earl’s Court Motor Show a month later, the Vanden Plaaah stand had an ADO16 with a shiny new nose, a big slab of veneered wood on its dash and the finest upholstery Britain could muster in its cabin. This was a prototype hand-made at Kingsbury, using an MG 1100 base, and exhibited just to gauge public sentiment. Said public acquiesced, and the rest is history.
It took about a year to get production of the Princess 1100 underway. And in 1965, the Riley Kestrel and Wolseley 1100 joined the family, possibly due to the fact that the Princess was really expensive. Well, it had to be: they weren’t skimping on the Connolly leather and the wool carpets – or the extra sound-deadening. The ADO16 got a major makeover when it switched to a new 1275cc engine in 1967, leading to a sensible change in nomenclature to Princess 1300 for the Vanden Plaaaahs. Power was up to 65hp for the twin-carb cars.
By this point, the ADO16 was even available with an automatic gearbox – which our feature car has, making it a fairly rare example of the breed. On the other hand, the 4-speed automatic was only fitted with the single-carb 60hp engine, which is unfortunate given how much power is sapped by the transmission. Leonard Lord giveth, and Leonard Lord taketh away, as they said during the perilous British Leyland era.
But given how miserable this era was going to become in short order, let us gaze in awe at the limousine in miniature that is the interior of the Princess 1300. There was still a lot of quality and workmanship left in the Kingsbury works, right until the walls caved in and the balloon went up in the dreaded decade of discontent that were the ‘70s. Kingsbury closed in 1979, yet ten years prior, they could still make a damn decent picnic table.
The inherent snobbishness and rigid class structure still present in British society back in the early Elizabethan age meant that there were quite a few urbanites who were happy to part ways with many pounds, as well as a few shillings and pence, to be able to chauffeur themselves in a Princess 1300. How much pre-decimal currency did one need? Well, with the slushbox, about ₤1134. Less without, of course, but that was still a very hefty amount of Sterling, as the comparative table below will attempt to illustrate. I haven’t done one of these in a long while, but the Princess inspired me.
I tried my best to find cars below 1500cc to measure against the Princess, but the smaller Vauxhalls, Fords or similar were just too cheap to stand the comparison. Only exotic Italian or bigger cars were on par with or dearer than the Princess – this shows how high Vanden Plaaaah were aiming at, but also that looks can be deceiving. In terms of interior space, the ADO16’s super-efficient packaging meant that it was the equal of the eternal Cortina, the old BMC Farina (a.k.a the Wolseley) or the new Rootes Arrow (represented here by the Singer Gazelle), minus the boot space. And what the Princess lacked in power, it (sort of) made up in handling compared to the likes of the more powerful Nissan, Ford or Simca.
Still, it’s like the Princess 1300 played in its own cozy leather-upholstered niche, up next to all those larger sporty saloons. And that is one of the things that makes it attractive, in the end. It is a unique blend of a small car, big on the inside, chock full of luxury and slathered in chrome, but also front-wheel drive and relatively reliable, given its age and origins. As far as Japanese folks are concerned, this car hits 95% of the desirability checklist: it’s British, it’s cute, it’s luxurious, it’s small, it’s economical. It’s grandiose, yet non-threatening. It’s got a crown on its grille and this one even has an automatic gearbox! What’s not to like about the Plaaaah?
As CC’s very own Roger “Vanden” Carr remarked a couple days ago, the ADO16 just turned 60 years young this week, so perhaps there could be no better time to post a Princess 1300. BMC churned out close to 2.2 million ADO16s – of the two-door, four-door and estate kind – until production was curtailed in the summer of 1974 (though it lasted an extra three years overseas).
The Vanden Plaaaaah variant, though pretty much dreamt up on the fly, stayed right until the very end, in four-door only, tallying just over 43,000 units in a decade. That may not be a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it was all gravy for BMC / BL: development costs and nearly all production costs were soaked up by the volume of the Austin / Morris variants, and it kept the Kingsbury works afloat for a while, even as the BL mothership started listing badly, gravy notwithstanding. Quite a saucy little number, this Princess 1300.
Related posts:
Cohort Classic: 1966 Vanden Plas Princess 1100 – Peak Issigonis, With Added Contradictions, by Roger Carr
Cohort Outtake: Vanden Plas Princess 1100 – When Status Came In Small Packages, by PN
Curbside Classic Outtake: 1960/70’s Vanden Plas Princess 1100/1300 – The Real Anglophile, by Jim Brophy
The Cortina 1600 E was the car to have and still is in the Cortina collector world so why did any body buy the VP?. £26 more than the Cortina which was as a good weeks wage in 1969. Today it’s quite a good hourly rate for a machinist.
It is interesting also what a big percentage of 1990s Minis and the MGB RV8 revival went to Japan when new. I assume sold to retirees, who perhaps had some regret as to their county’s part in turning the car into just an appliance.
Your first sentence makes a lot of sense, though I haven’t yet seen an MGB V8 here.
As to your second sentence: I don’t see how cars, which as a mechanical mode of transport were always a type of appliance, were made more so by Japanese carmakers, as opposed to any other nationality of carmaker.
No agreement required Tatra. Cheers.
I doubt it. I believe the average Japanese gearhead is far younger than that and retirees aren’t snapping up little Brit-revival cars to atone for anything. The Japanese do seem to be quite open minded (both on a governmental as well as a personal level) about interesting cars from around the world, far more so than most other societies/countries, five minutes perusing Tatra87’s semi-recent catalog of work should prove that.
As far as “appliances” go, I think you perhaps misspelled “reliable” and “value for money”. Detroit and to a different degree Europe have learned immense lessons from Japanese industry who offered it freely and to anyone who asked, but sadly have chosen to ignore much if not most of it in favor of endlessly disposable products that are engineered to force people to replace their machinery or other consumer good instead of inspiring them to replace or expand it with another due to the good experience it provided. If one believes that Japan hasn’t created a veritable mountain of enjoyable, fun to drive, and frankly in many cases world-beating enthusiast machinery (which is what I think you are trying to do by using the word “appliance” as a derogatory term), then that’s just willful self-denial.
There’s no regret and shouldn’t be in Japanese society for building good products, but there should be plenty of shame in others for simply taking advantage of their customers. The only other option is to admit that their engineers, talent, knowhow and workforce are better which isn’t the case. It’s all a choice. Japan is the one country that actually seems to take pains to not appear to be “too” successful and is quite humble in many case where western countries or manufacturers would take an opportunity to revel in their superiority and brag about it, all in the aim of influencing this quarter’s numbers instead of playing the long game.
Again, no agreement required Jim, but remember the 90s Mini and MGB RV8 were new builds going to first owners in Japan. In fact most of the MGB RV8s in UK today were first exported to Japan and came back as used. Remember Japan exports even their domestically used cars because export was almost the whole reason for car production. That this rubs some the wrong way is no more surprising than the fact that some Japanese developed a love for exotic cars. Were ADO 16s, for example, even sold in the Japan of 1969?
Japan exports their domestic used cars primarily because there is huge demand for quality vehicles at reasonable prices around the world, the majority of places buying them are other countries driving on the other side of the road. Many used cars in the United States are exported abroad as well. The car manufacturing industry in the United States should consider itself lucky that A) they have successfully lobbied our government to unreasonably restrict the import of foreign cars and B) most Japanese cars are right hand drive. (Whereas importing most any car into Japan seems quite simple in comparison judging by the variety we see there). Our import restriction here is purely a sop to domestic producers, nevertheless much of US market production has been abandoned by the domestic makes as they found they either couldn’t or chose to not compete in many segments. Japan produces much of the product sold in the US, in the US, including some of the most reliable cars in the world, proving that labor isn’t the problem some once thought it was, but lack of proper engineering, misguided priorities, and management can be.
There were what, maybe 2000 RV8s built? That’s a quite small number, and zero were imported new into the United States due to our restrictions, 90’s Minis were sold in Britain and mainland Europe too to quite a few buyers. The reason they are going back (and why many Brits import cars in general) is that Japanese owned cars are generally very well maintained and aren’t exposed to much if any road salt while racking up far lower mileages that their domestically sold equivalents and as a bonus most have the steering wheel on the correct side of the car. The Japanese like interesting and fun cars and can afford them, what can I say? But to imply that it’s all retirees buying them to pay penance or something for is frankly unbelievable. I realize you disagree which is fine, I don’t want the rest of the readers somehow believing it though as I still believe accurate facts are important. If you can actually show data supporting your stated position as to who exactly purchased them and more importantly the reason why they did so I will happily change my viewpoint.
Japan exports a lot of domestic market used cars largely because of the stringent inspection (shaken) system – as a condition to keep the cars legally road worthy. Usually it’s about every 2 years, and the costs associated with keeping the car in compliance – repairs – goes up over time while the depreciating market value of the car goes down, the owner is incentivized to get a new vehicle, say in 7-8 years.
Naturally, there is a long term incentive for various actors to keep this system going – such as the a) service garages doing the inspections and b) the vehicle manufacturers and the car dealers (who can estimate when to call on a past customer to sell them a replacement car).
These older cars tend to be in pretty good condition, and can be exported to other locales – most often, the Russian Far East, New Zealand, maybe Ireland – where new cars are often very expensiv by comparison.
The Shaken sounds a lot like the TuV in Germany. Still, in both places you see far more older cars on the streets than you would imagine even if rarely (never? due to logical enforced rules/laws) deteriorated anywhere near the level of decrepitude seen in some other countries such as ours. Of course many cars in Japan are smaller and cheaper and thus presumably easier to justify replacing when the decision needs to be made. Or just do without and use the excellent public transport if in a major population area.
My daughter and partner were visiting from Chicago recently, and rented a Nissan Note from Avis/Budget at Dublin airport. I knew the rental companies are struggling to procure new cars, but was still surprised to find their rental was a 2019 JDM model, naturally in pristine condition, complete with a Japanese greeting each time you started the engine.
Were ADO 16s, for example, even sold in the Japan of 1969?
Yes they were. Just like today, the list of cars you could not get in Japan in the 60s was shorter than you seem to think. Shorter than the US, certainly: regulations were not as stringent. Taxes were (and remain) high, but if you had the dough, you could get almost anything.
This car is a great marriage of the English at their most innovative and the English at their most traditional. Very few cars have done well in both of these metrics.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the designers at Volvo *might* have been looking at this car when they drew up the nose of the new-for-1969 Volvo 164 🙂
You beat me to posting this!
Realistically, they were looking at BMC’s larger RWD sedans, like the Wolseley 6/99 (below) or the Princess 3 Litre. These traditional grilles/front ends were still common on a number of larger BMC products.
Volvo 164! First thought that popped into my head looking at this hot mess of a car.
This thing looks designed from the outset for Tokyo, it fits perfectly into the streetscape. And Tokyo seems flat which will take the focus off that dithery gearbox struggling on hills. Decades ago I lived high on the slopes of Table Mountain and had the use of an Austin 1100 automatic for a while and the poor thing would frantically search up and down through the gears all the while going slower and slower with only two in the car [ok the 1300 would be better..]
I have a review of the Austin America with this automatic coming. It was very highly praised and gave up very little in performance since it had four gears.
So, BMC beat GM to the punch, so to speak, with a car that ” could ” have inspired the Cadillac Cimmaron(?). At least BMC put a bit of thought and money into making the interior a bit more luxurious than the cheaper car it was based on.
This has zero to do with the Cimmaron. The Cimmaron was a half-assed attempt to compete with the small BMW and Mercedes cars. This Princess 1300 was in a class utterly by itself.
Sometimes folks have difficulty seeing a remark as just being a joke, I didn’t mean to seriously imply that this car resulted in the creation of the Cimmaron.
This car was a natural for London, with its very crowded streets and Brits love for high quality interiors and traditional style. Keep in mind that during the 60s, London was the style/fashion center of the universe. And that London style sense almost always involved a mixture of the very latest and new (ADO 16) and tradition. We see that in the Beatles, how many of their songs evoke British traditions, both admiring and ironically, or even mocking. Yet they too drove around in Rollers and such.
And of course the luxo versions of the Mini (Radford/ and Wood&Picket) were super hot.
All of this makes it very easy to understand why Tokyo embraced this London stylistic sensibility. They too are very crowded, and have both a very high regard for fashion as well as tradition. The princess 1300 nailed that, and as such rightfully became the basis of a huge passion for small but tradition-encrusted cars suitable for city life.
As to the pronunciation of Vanden Plas, are you suggesting the correct way is to actually pronounce the s at the end? I doubt even the Belgians did that.
Of course you need to pronounce the “s”. It’s a Dutch name. Francophones (Belgians included) all say “Vanden Plass”. I hope our man in Amsterdam Johannes will chime in, but Dutch is not known for silent letters. Those frivolities are reserved for English and French.
I’ve always called it Vanden Plas, with the s at the end closer to ‘glass’ than ‘place’, but not quite either.
Of all the ‘traditional’ fronts applied, I would have to say this is the most successful. The grille is well proportioned and quite plain without the rather exaggerated lean of the MG version and the driving lights fit neatly in the plain panels either side.
Correct T, the “s” should be pronounced loud and clear.
Vanden is actually the Flemish way of writing Van den. Now member of the family Willy clearly wrote his name the somewhat more northern Dutch way. Van den Plas, to be filed under the letter P (just like Vanden Plas).
What were we talking about?
Yes, we say/said Vanden Plaaah almost as much as we say/said Vanden Plas. You’d hear both, and the finer points of French/Belgian/Dutch/Flemish would be lost on most people.
It’s car for the city certainly, especially with the automatic. Don’t overlook how compact these are – a fraction over 12 feet by 5 feet, or 18 inches shorter and 8 inches narrower than a current Fiesta.
My choice would still be a Morris – I think the unmolested Pininfarina styling and plain bar grille works best, though a 1300GT in bright yellow could be tempting.
Paul’s right that was in a class of one – it cost as much as posh Farina saloon or Renault 16, more than a smart Rootes Arrow or Cortina and was probably slower than all of them in a straight line with the auto box. For 90%+ of people, the Cortina 1600E would have the choice, for value and fashion.
Nice piece, Professor
For some finetuning 🙂
https://www.howtopronounce.com/dutch/vanden-plas
A lovely little car.
While the interior is truly exquisite, and amazing to find in such a small car, I think I’d prefer to have the Riley variant; while the interior wouldn’t be comparable, the extra sportiness would do me. And make mine a manual, too. I guess a true Vanden Plas owner wouldn’t miss the extra pounds the Princess would cost over a Kestrel.
I always find your 12-car comparisons fascinating. For an ADO16 derivative, the Princess was certainly up against some exalted company. You would have to really love that interior to pay the premium. But oh, those Italians…..
I may be conflating two memories here, but in the late 80s my father was looking to customise a Mini and visited Wood & Pickett. He was surprised to see about half a dozen ADO 16 Princesses being restored – all for the Japanese market. Most were being fitted with aircon and automatic transmissions, and resprayed in black. As I say possibly two separate memories so the Princess company might not have been W&P but somewhere else in London.
The Vanden Plas versions of ADO16 are quite prized by collectors here and theres a surprising amount of them left,
I don’t normally comment on cars I dislike, it does not matter what i think anyway, but for this, thing I will make an exception.
Some cars I disliked growing up, I have come to appreciate, either their engineering or I have come to like their styling. I used to hate late 60s Valiants for example, love them now.
But for these I have maintained my hatred, I used to see them (Morris versions,but they are all the bloody same !) plodding around my hometown driven by little old ladies with blue rinsed hair (no disrespect to little old ladies is intended) The strange suspension causing a sort of bobbing action, I remember whiny gear noise as well.
The styling is just awkward, and look at its miserable black wheels with hubcaps, why couldn’t they have sprung for some nice wheels at least.
The inside looks like a truck with a wooden dash, is the spirit level in this one to warn if the car keels over on its weird springs ?.
Anyway, I will stop now, but how I loathe and despise these.
PS, Many thanks for writing this story and taking the pictures, I do enjoy reading about them, and appreciate the effort from all the CC writers that bring us these stories everyday.
With regard to the pronunciation we pronounce the letter ‘a’ differently in different parts of Britain, they might say plaaah in the south, but not in the north.
Leonard Lord was the driving force behind Vanden Plas triming Austins, he commissioned them to re trim a Westminster for his own use, and the Vanden Plas were then offered for sale. Sir Len was never involved in the mess that was British Leyland though, he died before it was formed.
Part of the reason for the price of the Vanden Plas version of the ADO16 was that they could sell every one they could make, the interior was after all entirely hand made and the factory and craftsmen had a limited capacity. But it was also expensive to make, the part built cars were transported from the midlands to London to be hand trimmed.
Ford copied the idea, but the E [for Executive] version of the Cortina/Corsair/Escort was a few bits of wood veneer on the dash and the doors, vinyl roof and seats and wheels without hub caps. The Ford was for the family that liked a flash way to splash the cash, the Princess was for the retired Bank Manager.