Westminsters, Princesses and an unexpected Rolls-Royce engine: we check out the largest BMC saloons.

Words: Ian Seabrook

The original Austin Westminster A90 of 1954 wasn’t a bad car, but it wasn’t exactly super-desirable. However, on a visit to the Austin works at Longbridge, Birmingham in 1955, it is widely reported that HRH The Duke of Edinburgh remarked that the existing designs were “not really up to the foreign competition.” This caused some hasty thinking at the British Motor Corporation (BMC) of which Austin was very much the strongest partner. Pininfarina was invited to Austin and found himself with a large contract to redesign all of the saloon cars.

The first fruit of this new relationship was the delightful A40 Farina which replaced the popular A35 followed by the A55 Cambridge mid-sized saloon. The focus of this guide, the A99 Westminster, arrived in 1959.

The Austin Westminster also had sisters in the form of the Wolseley 6/99 and the Princess 3-Litre, soon rebadged as the Vanden Plas Princess 3-Litre. Vanden Plas was the British off-shoot of a Belgian coachbuilder which Austin bought in 1946. For several decades, the London-based Kingsbury works of Vanden Plas constructed super-luxury versions of Austin saloons from the Westminster through to the BMC 1100 and even the Allegro.

The Vanden Plas 3-Litre featured much wood, leather and extra sound-proofing to create a car that felt very different to its lesser Austin stablemate. The Wolseley boasted a few trimmings and standard fog lamps to sit somewhere between the two.

For 1961, the wheelbase was stretched by two inches across the range, and power was boosted to 120 bhp while in 1962, power steering became optional. The new models were referred to as Austin Westminster A110, Vanden Plas 3-Litre MkII and Wolseley 6/110. In 1964, the three-speed overdrive gearbox was replaced by four speeds, with overdrive optional on the Westminster and Wolseley.

Factfile

Clubs

● Cambridge Oxford Owners’ Club www.co-oc.org, 07966 249 506
● Vanden Plas Owners’ Club www.vpoc.org
● Wolseley Register www.wolseleyworld.com

Specialists

● Earlpart, Derbys www.earlpart.co.uk, 01773 719504
● NTG, Suffolk www.mgbits.com, 01473 406031

Insurance

1965 Austin Westminster A110.
Comprehensive cover, 40-year old in Warwick, 10 years’ no claims, clean licence, second car, garaged, 2000 miles per year. £77.90 (£200 excess)
Quots from Performance Direct (0844 5733504, www.performancedirect.co.uk

 To read the rest of this buyers' guide see the March 2012 issue of Classic Car Mart - available to buy here.