The Vanden Plas Princess R with its Rolls-Royce all-aluminium 175 bhp engine was announced in August 1964. With an unusually high power to weight ratio the car gave easy cruising at 90+ mph and was capable of 112 mph. In addition to exterior alterations, the R featured an 6 cylinder aluminium Rolls-Royce FB60 engine, a short-stroke version of the
B series engine: 4, 6 and 8 cylinder units of which more than 30,000 had already been produced. The engine resulted from more than two years technical collaboration between
BMC and
Rolls-Royce, and featured a cubic capacity of . Over-square: bore was , stroke ; with a 7.8:1 compression ratio its output was @4,800 rpm. Twin SU carburettors were fitted. Both block and head were aluminium, tappets were hydraulic self-adjusting operating on overhead inlet and side exhaust valves. The counterbalanced crankshaft ran in seven bearings. The 4-litre R featured polished walnut fascia padded top and bottom, leather upholstered seats with fully reclinable backs and deployable polished picnic tables for the rear passengers. A new automatic transmission was provided,
Borg-Warner model 8, its first use in a British car and
Hydrosteer variable ratio power steering accompanied wider tyres. Externally the fog lamps were moved up by the grille, and rear tailfins were replaced with small corner-ridges.
Engine specifications Pricing The background to the pricing was that from April 1961 tax relief on company cars was allowed only up to £2,000. The new car was priced on a par with the
Jaguar Mark X (albeit only the manual transmission model of the Jaguar) and 50 per cent more than its apparent predecessor the 3-litre car. It was a major change of market positioning aimed at the growing prestige and executive market in Europe and the United States. However, its close appearance to its predecessor and its pricing (near to that of the Jaguar, which was bigger with a far more advanced chassis design and more prestigious, though itself without a useful market in the United States), resulted in slow sales. • £1,346 (discontinued Vanden Plas Princess Mark II) • £1,994 Vanden Plas Princess 4-litre R • £2,022 Jaguar Mark X • £5,517 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III
Production Joint production aimed at 12,000 annually, though actual production was never more than a fraction of this. Final assembly and hand finishing took place at the Vanden Plas works in Kingsbury London. The Vanden Plas Princess 4-litre R remained in production until 1968, just ahead of BMC's merge into British Leyland. 6,687 vehicles were produced at Kingsbury and an additional 312 C.K.D. kits were exported to South Africa bringing total production to 6,999 units. It was the only mass-produced civilian vehicle from another manufacturer ever to use a Rolls-Royce engine. The late Queen Elizabeth ll owned an estate model of the Vanden Plas Princess, with an estimated production of 4-7. File:Vanden-Plas_Princess_4-litre_R_head.jpg|Front view showing newly positioned fog lamps and wider tyres File:Vanden-Plas_Princess_4-litre_R_tail.jpg|Rear view showing new horizontal lighting arrangement File:Vanden-Plas_Princess_4-litre_R_rear.jpg|Rear three-quarter view showing revised roofline ==Rolls-Royce Java==