Austin Sheerline vs Vanden Plas Princess: the Longbridge Daimlers

By Martin Buckley

| 12 Jan 2024

Classic & Sports Car – Austin Sheerline vs Vanden Plas Princess: the Longbridge Daimlers

If there is something rock ’n’ roll about a Rolls-Royce Phantom V, we tend to think of the 4-litre Austin limousines – the Sheerline and Princess – as a bit pompous and municipal.

Current for 20 years in various forms, they began life as owner-driver success symbols, then reinvented themselves as the bedrock of Britain’s private-hire carriage trade.

Dozens ended their days as whitewashed wedding cars or else met violent deaths on the banger-racing circuit.

The ‘Flying A’ symbol sits proudly atop the Austin Sheerline A125’s huge grille

Yet the story of these stolid cars isn’t all provincial dignitaries and shotgun weddings.

The Beatles used a Princess in the band’s early days of fame, as did Bob Dylan on his first UK tour.

Christine Keeler recalled it as a ‘Rolls-Royce’ in her memoirs, but the government limousine in which Minister for War John Profumo first wooed her was almost certainly a Vanden Plas Princess.

These cars were created to look impressive in any setting, and nobody turned up their nose at a seat in the back of any of its iterations.

The Austin Sheerline A125 invites its owner to take the wheel

The Royal Household had the first two DM4 limos in 1952, and the last two in 1968.

There were five others in between, including the car in which Princess Anne was travelling when an attempt was made to kidnap her in 1974.

These were vehicles born of the post-war ambitions of Leonard Lord of the Austin Motor Company.

As a Derby Bentley driver during the war, the chain-smoking and famously potty-mouthed Longbridge boss had long harboured dreams of taking on the United States with a grand, six-cylinder Austin.

The Austin’s sofa-like rear bench

Longbridge was no stranger to the world of large saloon cars. Through the 1930s, 18, 20 and finally 28 RAC horsepower-rated, six-cylinder Austins had been sold with some success.

Lord saw no reason to shy away from the challenge of squaring up to Daimler and the like with his conception of a ‘poor man’s Bentley’.

With his resolve bolstered by the 1946 acquisition of body-maker Vanden Plas, Lord’s approach was to be two-pronged in the form of the £1278 A110, DS1 Sheerline and the £1800 A120, DS2 Princess.

The former would be an all-Longbridge production, the latter coachbuilt by Vanden Plas in a combination of steel and aluminium (with ash body framework where appropriate), then finished with 14 coats of gleaming, hand-rubbed paint.

‘The chain-smoking and potty-mouthed Longbridge boss had long harboured dreams of taking on the US with a grand Austin’

It was christened ‘Princess’ by Roland Fox, then boss of VdP, as a nod to young royals Elizabeth and Margaret, who were much in the news at the time.

Austin stylist Dick Burzi was originally from Argentina, the former Lancia employee having arrived in the UK in 1929 to work for Lord.

His razor-edged, bustle-tailed Sheerline was created along Packard lines, with massive 48-Watt Lucas P100 headlights; allegedly, the car would go 4mph faster when they were pointing rearwards.

Its roof panel was said to be the largest single steel pressing in the British motor industry at the time.

The aspirant script of the Austin marque on the grand Sheerline A125

Working with the same 9ft 11in wheelbase, box-section chassis, Vanden Plas technical director John Bradley, who had a pedigree at the Kingsbury, north London works that dated back to 1932, made a more graceful job of the DS2 Princess.

With its faired-in headlights, full-bodied wing lines and spatted rear wheels, it successfully blended dignity with sleek, almost sports-saloon overtones.

Mechanically near-identical, the Sheerline and Princess were the first Austins with overhead-valve engines, independent front suspension and fully hydraulic braking.

Austin’s 3995cc ‘six’ gives 125bhp

Lockheed twin-leading-shoe drums struggled with fade in these two-tonne, near-90mph cars, which were much faster – and heavier – than anything their engineers had tackled before.

With coil springs and wishbones at the front, all-round Armstrong lever-arm dampers and gaitered, semi-elliptic leaf springs restraining the live rear axle (with hypoid-bevel final drive to keep the floor flat), the underpinnings were conservative.

There were 26 grease points, too, which needed attention every 1000 miles – a tedious regime even by 1940s standards.

Concentration is required in order to navigate bends smoothly in the big classic Austin

The built-in ‘Jackall’ electro-hydraulic jacking system went some way towards simplifying the task.

Operated by a lever under the carpet in the driver’s footwell, it lifted all four wheels clear of the ground.

Inside, a heater and radio were fitted – true luxury by 1947 standards.

Walnut-trimmed and leather-clad, these were the first new post-war Austins and easily the most complex cars the firm had yet made.

Square, gold-faced dials give the Austin Sheerline A125 an air of opulence

Both models were launched at Geneva in 1947. The single-carburettor Sheerline A110 was the junior partner; the triple-carburettor A120 Princess 10bhp stronger.

The first few pre-production cars were 3.5 litres. By the end of the year, both cars had been uprated to a full 4 litres to become the A125 and A135, probably in response to the new flat-rate road-tax system that no longer penalised larger engines.

Austin’s D-series powerplant later gained a certain notoriety as the unit that powered the post-war Jensens, although it is a moot point whether or not this 3995cc ‘six’ was strictly an original Austin conception.

The Austin’s radio is placed out of reach to all but the driver

All being fair in love and war, the Longbridge engineers had, seemingly, merely allowed themselves to be ‘inspired’ by the contemporary Bedford truck straight-six (itself a derivative of the Chevrolet Stovebolt) and introduced it in 1939 as Austin’s very own ‘High Speed’ engine for military use.

Refinements such as pressurised lubrication and detachable shells for the main and conrod bearings, plus a typically Austin left-handed camshaft, distinguished it enough to keep the lawyers happy.

For the Sheerline/Princess it was suitably civilianised, with a finned alloy sump, soundproofed rocker and timing covers, and a torsional vibration damper on its crank.

The Austin Sheerline A125’s oversized styling touches have an element of caricature

After 1949, a further 700 DM1 Sheerline limousines were produced on a wheelbase lengthened by over a foot.

This stretch didn’t do much for the already ungainly looks, and when the Sheerline proved difficult to sell it had the effect of persuading Leonard Lord that any further visual developments on the theme of his 4-litre cars were best left to Vanden Plas.

The Sheerline had its place as a formal car on the product-hungry, early post-war British market, as well as overseas in the outposts of a rapidly receding Empire.

Its failure to make much impression in America had probably already sealed its fate as the 1950s dawned.

The Austin Sheerline A125’s flexible engine makes for easy progress

Healthy local sales of around 7000 standard-wheelbase Sheerlines perhaps reflected both the paucity of competition and the value-for-money factor of a car that cost less than half as much as the Bentley most people thought it was.

When Sheerline production ended in 1954, the responsibility for the construction of the low-volume Princess A135 was handed to Vanden Plas, which henceforth assembled the chassis on-site at the Kingsbury works.

Throughout the 1950s, VdP regularly tweaked the standard-wheelbase A135.

The single-Stromberg Princess II arrived in 1950, while the Princess III, with a restyled front grille, followed in 1953.

‘Both versions pull smoothly from less than 10mph, giving passengers an impression of effortless smoothness up to a 70mph cruise’

The most radical development was the 100mph Princess IV (or DS7) of ’56, a last-ditch attempt to market the A135 as an owner-driver vehicle in the luxury sports-saloon idiom.

This slab-sided creation had few takers, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that the future of these 4-litre Austins lay with the carriage trade and the long-wheelbase DM4 cars.

By the beginning of the 1960s, VdP would be marketing the DM4 as the Vanden Plas Princess 4 litre limousine.

The Vanden Plas Princess A135 4 litre limousine feels more at home in town than the countryside and was advertised as such

The venerable coachbuilder was by then BMC’s prestige division and a marque in its own right.

Its cars no longer carried the ‘Flying A’ symbol or any other external reference to the origins of the mechanical works underneath the vast, elegant coachwork.

The DM4 Princess limousine, with its 11ft wheelbase, was introduced in 1952 and stayed in production until 1968, handbuilt at the rate of two or three a week at VdP’s north London production site.

Longbridge boss Leonard Lord acquired the Vanden Plas name in 1946

With more than 3238 produced (not including the 300 long-wheelbase A135 chassis, sold mostly to provincial coachbuilders to produce ambulances and hearses), these principally chauffeur-driven cars have to be deemed a success within a limited sphere.

They might not have had the glamour of some of the beautiful pre-war Bentley and Alvis bodies that had emerged from this famous works, but there was a solid demand for these cars: from the funeral trade, from government (for the use of higher-ranking ministers), for generals and admirals of the armed forces, and for anyone who needed a reliable, tastefully trimmed and suitably dignified vehicle with room for up to eight passengers.

The Vanden Plas Princess 4 litre displays some subtle flair

Options included air conditioning, power-assisted steering – available from 1960 – and a four-speed Hydramatic gearbox from Rolls-Royce to relieve your driver of the chore of negotiating with the four-speed, three-synchromesh column change that was never the nicest thing about these cars.

You could also have Selectaride dampers, an electric or sliding glass division, flagstaffs on the front wings and even a radio phone.

Between 1953 and ’67, 18 DM4 landaulettes were built for Jamaica, Malta, Australia, Zanzibar, British Guiana and Ceylon.

In the early 1960s, the Vanden Plas Princess dropped the ‘Flying A’ symbol as VdP became a car maker in its own right

Uganda had the second landaulette that was produced: Idi Amin occasionally used it as an official car before he discovered the charms of the Mercedes-Benz 600.

Other than the adoption of chromed door-window frames, the DM4 shape changed very little visually across its 17-year run; only near the end of production did Vanden Plas look at using quad-headlights and a curved ’screen (without a split).

The Princess 4 litre was by then facing internal competition from the Daimler Majestic Major limousine and was eventually dropped in favour of the long-serving 1968-’90 Daimler DS420.

The rather austere finish marks the Vanden Plas Princess 4 litre’s cockpit as the chauffeur’s workplace

The cars pictured here represent the two extremes of the 4-litre production run.

A125 Sheerline EX 7931 was originally registered in 1953 in Great Yarmouth, just 12 miles down the road from where current owner Jonathan Read lives. Laid up in 1974, it was discovered in the mid-’80s by John Cummins.

He started rebuilding the car, but eventually passed ownership on to his nephew, Colin Cummins, who finished the restoration.

In the process, he turned it into one of the most beautiful examples remaining.

The commodious bench in the Vanden Plas Princess 4 litre

EX 7931 joined the Read family fleet three years ago, keeping two other Sheerlines company.

“My father always talked fondly of Sheerlines, which is where my fascination for them comes from,” says Jonathan.

A wide variety of single- and two-tone finishes were available on Sheerlines and Princesses, but out of 3238 DM4s, 2876 of them were black.

David Goodey’s DM4 Princess started life as a Yorkshire funeral director’s car, in black over Sherwood Green.

The Vanden Plas Princess is more understated than the Austin Sheerline

It later earned its living as a private-hire limousine with its second owner, until the early 1980s when it was traded in at funeral-vehicle constructor Coleman Milne against one of its stretched Ford limousines.

In 1984, David’s father bought the Princess from A135 specialist Don Kitchen and used it for wedding hire, until about 20 years ago.

In fact, the Princess, unrestored other than for attention to its wooden framework around the boot, still does the odd wedding. It has even starred on Celebrity Antiques Road Trip.

The Austin unit was uprated to 4 litres after the 3.5-litre pre-production cars

With its fixed driving position, sliding division, simple fascia layout and lavish rear-seat space, the eight-seater Princess has the feel of a car built to do a job: a giant luxury taxi, albeit a graceful one in its own right compared to the slightly cartoonish looks of the Sheerline, which seems to have driven straight out of the world of Thomas the Tank Engine.

That is part of its charm, of course. The front doors open conventionally, despite many large English saloons still having B-pillar-hinged ‘suicide’ arrangements in the early 1950s.

With its square, gold-faced instruments, the giant pearlescent steering wheel and wide, unpleated and individually adjustable front seats (a bench was optional), the owner-driver Sheerline doesn’t have the sparse, chauffeur’s quarters feel of the Princess up front, yet it has all the rear legroom you could wish for.

The Princess name was a Vanden Plas touch

A rear-window blind – and the tiny back window – makes the Sheerline’s interior feel like a much more private space than the limousine, which is built high for ease of entry through its rear-hinged doors.

Inside, with the jump-seats stowed, you sink back into its thickly padded leather (or West of England cloth) rear bench, offering commanding views of the dashboard and tapering bonnet.

Both of these cars have manual ’boxes and no power steering, so the driving characteristics are quite similar.

There’s extra seating on hand in the Vanden Plas, if needed

With a rustle from the tappets, they accelerate unobtrusively, although the unsynchronised first gear is best avoided because it is noisy and tends to agitate clutch judder.

It’s so low that you change up almost immediately anyway.

Given the ponderous nature of the gearchange, hindered by the slow-revving but massively flexible engine, there’s no real disadvantage in going straight from second to top.

Here, both cars accelerate smoothly from less than 10mph, giving their passengers an impression of effortless smoothness up to cruising speeds of around 70mph.

The Vanden Plas has heater controls tucked under the dashboard

Vanden Plas advertised the 4 litre as ‘a magnificent town carriage’, and it does feel like a car that is destined to be driven from city boardrooms to stations and airports, rather than used as a long-distance machine.

In both cases, big road wheels, and general heft and mass, almost guarantee a well-damped but not soggy ride quality.

It seems superfluous to talk about ‘handling’, but what I can say is that anything above a brisk trot – be the road straight or twisty – requires not only focus, but also smoothness, anticipation and conscious wheel-feeding.

The Vanden Plas Princess 4 litre’s tall rear offers practicality

You hear the understeer – in the form of tyre scrub – almost before you feel it at the helm, and at low speeds you instinctively get as much of your steering done while the wheels are rotating.

No doubt chastened by the failure of the A90 Atlantic, Leonard Lord’s ambitions for the A125 and A135 were much more realistic by the middle of the 1950s.

A dozen years later, he must have been mildly surprised that the direct descendants of his post-war ‘poor man’s Bentley’ ego trip were still in production.

These stately classic cars from Austin and Vanden Plas recall a very different time

These big cars were not especially cutting-edge in 1947, and neither were they great beauties.

Nor do they feature on many enthusiasts’ top 10 ‘must drive’ or ‘must own’ lists today.

Yet there is something honest and lovable about them, a sense of dignity and capacity for work that demands your respect.

They have an earnest, solid worth, reminiscent of a country where things used to work.

As much as being cars, they are portals into a lost version of England, created to cater to the needs of a way of life that was a speck in the rear-view mirror even 50 years ago, and of a society so far removed from the one we live in today that it is almost unrecognisable.

Images: Max Edleston

Factfiles

Austin Sheerline A125

Sold/number built 1948-’54/c7000
Construction steel chassis, steel body
Engine all-iron, ohv 3995cc straight-six, single Stromberg carburettor
Max power 125bhp @ 4000rpm
Max torque 185Ib ft @ 2000rpm
Transmission four-speed manual, RWD
Suspension: front wishbones, coil springs rear live axle, semi-elliptic leaf springs, anti-roll bar; lever-arm dampers f/r
Steering cam and peg
Brakes drums
Length 16ft (4877mm)
Width 6ft 1in (1854mm)
Height 5ft 7in (1702mm)
Wheelbase 9ft 11in (3023mm)
Weight 4300Ib (1950kg)
Mpg 15
0-60mph 20.6 secs
Top speed 83mph
Price new £1277
Price now £15,000*

Vanden Plas Princess A135 4 litre limousine

Sold/number built 1952-’68/3238
Construction steel chassis, steel and aluminium body
Engine all-iron, ohv 3995cc straight-six, single Stromberg carburettor
Max power 125bhp @ 4000rpm
Max torque 185Ib ft @ 2000rpm
Transmission four-speed manual, RWD
Suspension: front wishbones, coil springs rear live axle, semi-elliptic leaf springs, anti-roll bar; lever-arm dampers f/r
Steering cam and peg
Brakes drums
Length 17ft 11in (5461mm)
Width 6ft 2½in (1892mm)
Height 6ft 2in (1880mm)
Wheelbase 11ft (3353mm)
Weight 4676Ib (2121kg)
Mpg 13-16
0-60mph 26 secs
Top speed 80mph
Price new £3082
Price now £15,000*