A memory of the Ambassador was about 30 years ago when I miss kicked a football and it badly damaged the drivers wing mirror of my neighbours car. Didn't have the nerve to own up. Was thinking that maybe there was no rev counter to hide the revs considering it was only a 4 speed box.
A well designed brochure in that it has lots of small photos of individual features and the buyer can sit and imagine using each one. I absolutely love the glovebox pic with the driving gloves and tin of boiled sweets! A picture paints a thousand words about BL's intended buyers! Imagine going to all that expense of a bodyshell update and yet no rev counter or 5 speed box. Was impressed by the central locking for the vanden plas. A lovely design which just needed to be beefed up a bit bit and sat lower on it suspension I'd say. Ta!
Always liked the Ambassador, but it was so uncool for a young fella like me to drive so I never quite gained the confidence to buy one, choosing a Citroen BX 1.6RE (GTi look alike!) instead!
11:36: I suppose this initially was the Austin-Morris badge on the steering wheel, rather than the Austin-Rover one. Anyway - the Ambassador was such a wonderful design - in my opinion it looked far better than any of the competition! I would absolutely love to have one!
"Hear rest." Trust British Leyland to release a brochure with a typo! Its hard to believe Leyland built the Princess range for five or six years without making it a hatchback. It would have been so easy from the start. It was like they suddenly noticed years later the design was perfect for a liftback. Still, a nice enough car, it was only a stopgap really. Must be very rare now. Tasty Classics rescued a blue one recently and got it up and running. Very entertaining it was too. Thanks for another pleasant half hour. Very relaxing and enjoyable.
The wedge shaped car thar replaced the Landcrab was initially the new Austin/Morris 1800/2200 and Wolseley Six in 1975 before all cars were soon renamed Princess and were saloons. The Maxi and Rover SD1 the only BL hatchbacks. By 1982 the Maxi had finished production and the Princess restyled to the Ambassador and now a hatchback. 43000 Ambassadors were built 1982-1984, before the Montego was introduced and only about 20 left, last saw a red one in Sale, Manchester several years ago. Even the remaining Montegos are now only in double figures.
As a nice looking car it was a flop from the start ,no wonder it lasted 2 years and not available in LHD for Europe I did see some in Cyprus and I think they were in South Africa. The tail lights were of the last Morris Marina (1978-1980) with the rear fog lamps fitted and the same O series engine as the Morris Ital 1.7 fitted in a front wheel drive figuration. and like you said no 5 speed gear box at the time when the new Ford Sierra and MK2 Vauxhall Cavalier , new Audi 100 ,VW Passat also the Japanese cars Honda,Nissan, Toyota. Saying all that it was a comfy ride, great video Take care👍
Interesting how the Maxi had 5-speed as standard from the word go, yet was at the end of its production run at the Ambassador's launch. I had a neighbour with a top-of-the-range straight-6 Princess 2.2 HLS from 1979, in gleaming black. I can't remember if it was 4 or 5-speed. He was always eager to boast about its power steering. That car made quite a nice noise, though ultimately it would have been very thirsty and the performance figures wouldn't be much greater than this Ambassador 2.0.
It is Van den Plas. The 's' is pronounced and the a is pronounced like 'a' in apple. It is not French. It is a Dutch family name meaning "from the puddle". Mr Van den Plas was a Flemish coachbuilder. BMC bought his business and it became a BL trim level. I hope that this helps.
@@quarterlight I shall continue to watch your videos. It was an absurd car really. A hatchback too late. Not a rev counter even on the VDP even though the Triumph Acclaim L had one. There was no 5 speed box on this car even though the Allegro and the Maxi had them much earlier. I sometimes think BL wanted this car to fail.
My lecturer at motorbike college in “93, had a 1.7 and every two weeks he would pump it on the Friday because it would slowly depressurise and wouldn’t get over the hump on the way into the car park. He scrapped it when the m.o.t. was due at Christmas. When we returned after the break, Blow me he bought another one which within a month he was doing it again! Mind you he drove like a nutter and never slowed down for anything 😂
I always thought that the Ambassador (and the Ital for that matter) was a very underwhelming model. I`d rather Leyland/ Austin Morris kept the Princess going for a few more years. Maybe give it the rear hatch door it sorely missed and call it the Princess 3? 🤔 The Montego couldn`t have arrived soon enough! I also wonder what the management were thinking not giving the higher spec ones rev counters. We're they not paying attention to what the likes of Ford, Vauxhall and Honda were doing? I didn`t know about the lack of a 5th gear on the manuals. Would have thought that they were compatible wit the O series engines.
Front end looks very swakrad, as with the Ital. Those headlamps look like an afterthought, give it a sad-looking sorrowful face. Odd that they replaced the Ambassador with the booted Montego.
I've offered wondered how much better the Ambassador would have looked if it had a body kit, instead of it looking like a tractor with the ride height. The Vanden model was nice, but Austin Rover should have done much better with the equipment levels and engines.
Wow standard PAS on the L model ! Even the early Mk3 Granadas didn't get PAS as standard on the 4-cylinder L or GL models. Oddly, the Maxi had a 5-speed manual box. "Easy going" performance is hardly going to appeal to anyone. 83bhp wasn't _that_ bad. 8 bhp more than the 1.6 Sierra. As with the early Sierras, the hatchback was still referred to as a saloon. If this had the O Series engine in it, then the 2.0 turbo unit from the 800 Vitesse would probably drop straight in. 1.6 Sierra was dog-slow, with only 75bhp and a 0-60 of 13.1 secs. 1.3 had 60bhp and did 0-60 in 16.7 seconds ! Cavalier had 90bhp.
I respect the Ambassador but the front end looks very cheap Ital looking for my liking. I thought the Princess 2200HLS was a phenomenal car in my opinion in comparison
