Vanden Plas

Vanden Plas is a British car brand and a former body builder. The company was founded in 1913 as a subsidiary of the Belgian coachbuilder Carosserie Van den Plas. During the British company Jaguar Vanden Plas is now one had the Belgian company only until shortly after the Second World War stock.

History

The first appearance of the name Van den Plas in England around 1906. It Métallurgique expensive cars were imported with bodies by Van den Plas in Belgium. The expensive cars found favor, and in 1913 founded Oscar Cüpper, Warwick Wright and Théo Masui the Vanden Plas (England) Ltd.. (in England this slightly modified notation was always used ) to produce bodies on the nature of the Belgians. 1914, the company was bought by the Aircraft Manufacturing Company in Hendon, London. In 1923, the Vanden Plas (1917 ) Ltd. , Under the direction of Edwin Fox, reconstituted under a kind of management buy -out. Thanks to good contacts to the nearby Bentley Vanden Plas works delivered between 1924 and 1931, the bodies of more than 700 Bentley chassis.

In the 1930s, Vanden Plas supplied bodies for Alvis, Armstrong Siddeley, Bentley, Daimler, Lagonda and Rolls -Royce.

Austin and BMC

With the peace treaty of 1945 Vanden Plas tried to return to their old business. Austin wanted to build a luxury car and turned to Vanden Plas. 1946 Vanden Plas became a branch of the Austin Motor Company and produced its A135 Princess models. From 1958 Vanden Plas was recognized as a car manufacturer, and in 1960 was from the Austin Princess Vanden Plas Princess of. The name was also for many BMC vehicles in badge engineering, eg Austin / Morris 1100 Austin / Morris 1300 Austin Allegro (known as " Vanden Plas Princess 1500" ) was used. End of the 1960s, the Vanden Plas models were particularly dignified carriage of the upper middle class, was even resorted for the bodies to components simpler BMC models.

Models with a certain autonomy were the Vanden Plas Princess 3 Litre and the Vanden Plas Princess 4 Litre R, which had a developed by Rolls- Royce for the model Rangoon six-cylinder engine.

Jaguar

Jaguar and the associated since 1960 Daimler Company Limited merged in 1966 with the British Motor Corporation British Motor Holdings ( BMH ), the 1968 in turn merged with the Leyland Motor Corporation British Leyland Motor Corporation. The preparation of the Vanden Plas Princess was set before this last merger. Successor was the Daimler DS 420, the paint and interior were made until 1979 in the Vanden Plas works in Kingsbury. A newly designed Princess midsize car manufactured 1975-1982 Leyland, but has nothing to do with Vanden Plas.

Since 1972, there was next to the chauffeur limousine also a particularly luxurious ausstaffierte variant of the Daimler Sovereign and Double Six from the Jaguar XJ- Series, which were also painted and equipped to 1979 in Kingsbury. From 1982, these cars were offered in many export markets as Jaguar Vanden Plas. In the privatization Jaguars 1984 the rights to the name Vanden Plas for Europe were awarded the Austin Rover Group, because this named the top models of their model lines with that name. Since Austin Rover withdrew from the U.S. market and the Jaguar Vanden Plas became there the same very popular, they admitted that the use of the Jaguar Vanden Plas name for the rest of the world.

While Rover soon renounced the use of the name, the top version of the Jaguar sedan in North America was called to 2002 Vanden Plas. As an example, the Jaguar XJ Series II ( X300 ) can be cited, which was in the " Daimler " version sold in the USA due to licensing issues as " X300 Vanden Plas ". 2006, the name for the top U.S. model was revived with naturally aspirated engines.

Swell

  • Stertkamp, Heiner: Jaguar - The Complete History from 1922 to Today, 2nd edition, Heel -Verlag (2006), ISBN 3-89880-337-6
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