20 Jun 01
One day the Allegro-based Vanden Plas will be one of the great kitsch icons of the '70s. It's a wonderfully pretentious slice of suburbia that could only have originated in Britain, what with its faux Bentley grille, limousine coachlines and ultra-posh interior that had all the richness of a Daimler's. Owners lounged in armchair leather seats and admired a glossy veneer dash. Built as a follow-up to the much more charming 1100/1300 Vanden Plas, these cars were finished alongside Daimler Limousines in VDP's Kingsbury works (although the last ones were put together by MG at Abingdon). Powered by the raucous E-Series engine, the pig-nosed Allegro VDP was an uninspired drive, but probably not as bad as the retro-pundits and BL-bashers would have us believe. Then again, it might have been... the automotive equivalent of having a knitted dolly cover on your loo roll.
