• Automatic transmission • Previous long-term enthusiast family ownership • An older restoration • Well maintained One of Britain's most illustrious coachbuilders, chiefly remembered for its sublime Vintage-era Bentleys, the firm of Vanden Plas was acquired by Austin in 1946 and re-invented as a marque in its own right some years later.

From the late 1940s onwards Vanden Plas engaged in bodying top-of-the-line Austins, most notably the A135 Princess Limousine, before marque status arrived for 1960.

However, something less grandiose was required in order for Austin to exploit the potential of the esteemed coachbuilder's brand in the much larger owner-driver market, so from 1960 onwards there was a Vanden Plas-badged version of the Austin A99 Westminster: the Princess 3-Litre.

Mechanically identical to the Austin A99 and Wolseley 6/99, incomplete cars destined for the Vanden Plas treatment would be despatched from the Cowley factory to the coachbuilder's works in Kingsbury, North Lond...