Vanden Plas

Latterly the name became a top-end luxury model designation for cars from subsidiaries of British Leyland and the Rover Group, being last used in 2009 to denote the top-luxury version of the Jaguar XJ (X350).

It was founded by Guillaume van den Plas, a blacksmith, and his three sons, Antoine, Henri and Willy, who later set up a branch in Paris.

[2] The coachbuilder's name first appeared in the United Kingdom in 1906 when Métallurgique cars were imported with Carrosserie Van den Plas coachwork.

The exclusive UK naming rights seem to have been lost, because in the early 1920s the Belgian firm was exhibiting at the London Motor Show alongside the British business.

In the 1930s the company became less dependent on one car maker, and supplied coachwork to such as Alvis, Armstrong Siddeley, Bentley, Daimler, Lagonda, Rolls-Royce and Talbot.

Austin wanted to market a chauffeur-driven version of its in-house-built large 4-litre Rolls-Royce-size A110 Sheerline luxury car and approached Vanden Plas.

Also in 1957/8, Vanden Plas were asked by Leonard Lord to add luxury fittings to a batch of Austin A105 Westminster cars, beginning the practice of using the company's skills and name for badge-engineered (and modified) luxury versions of many of the BMC (and later British Leyland (BL)) cars such as the 1100/1300 range and the Allegro (known as the Vanden Plas 1500, 1.5 & 1.7[5] from 1975 to 1980).

This involved replicating the front and rear of the Vanden Plas, complete with two tone paint scheme as sported by the original model in the 1960s.