• Known ownership history from new • First owner for 48 years • Circa 50,000 miles from new • Last serviced in 2022 One of Britain's most illustrious coachbuilders, chiefly remembered for its sublime Vintage-era Bentleys, Vanden Plas was acquired by Austin in 1946 and reinvented 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 before marque status, albeit courtesy of 'badge engineering', arrived for 1960.

The final development saw the Princess model offered with the six-cylinder Rolls-Royce FB60 engine: a 3,909cc short-stroke variant of that used in the Silver Cloud.

Extensive revisions were made to accommodate the Rolls-Royce engine and the new model – known as the Princess 4-Litre R – was most enthusiastically received.

Sadly, sales slowed to a trickle and only 6,555 cars had been built when the model was withdrawn in 1968.

Originally supplied by Vincents of Reading Ltd to Miss Aprilla Gilfrin, who ...