This is a truly unique car which looks like a Leyland Allegro, but is not an Allegro and is now 50-years-old. Philip Preen sings the cars praises as one of few in Northern Ireland.
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00:00My name's Philip Preen and I'm the owner of this Vanden Plas 1500.
00:09I think they're completely odd because they are basically a bread and butter run-of-the-mill
00:15production saloon that was designed to be a cheap disposable car and for some reason
00:20they ended up being trimmed out by Kingsbury in North London, the Vanden Plas Works, Coach
00:25Works and they're just totally unique.
00:29There's nothing else like it on the road, coach built interior, handcrafted veneers
00:34on the dashboard and the picnic tables, just totally odd, really eccentric.
00:39This car was built in Longbridge in June 1978, it was dispatched to Kingsbury in September
00:451978 and it was dispatched to the dealership in March 1979 so the car was nearly a year
00:50old by the time it had all that work done with it.
00:55It generally took a worker three or four days to trim out an interior with leather
01:01seats and everything else.
01:03People spot an Allegro and then they go it's an Allegro with a funny front and then they
01:09try and work out what is it, isn't it an Allegro and I say technically it's not an Allegro,
01:14it's a Vanden Plas 1500, aye but it's an Allegro, no not really.
01:19This doesn't mention Allegro or Austin on the log book or the VIN plate or anything
01:23else, it's a Vanden Plas 1500, oh I thought it was an Allegro.
01:27I know of three Vanden Plas 1500s in Northern Ireland, this being one of them, there's a
01:33tower green one up near Brushane and there's a black one I think somewhere in Newtownards.
01:39I bought this car in August 2000, I'd seen it for sale in the Vanden Plas owner's club
01:45magazine, we had a brown one at the time, a russet brown one, I saw this for sale, went
01:52to look up the car, bought it, brought it home, nearly 25 years ago now.
01:59We had Allegros in the 70s, my parents had one as daily drivers in the 70s, mum had one
02:04in the 80s, so always been part of the family, probably done about 8,000 miles in 25 years,
02:12so not a huge amount of mileage.
02:15Last year was the 50th birthday of the Allegro, so it went to England twice last year, did
02:20800 miles on each trip, so never looked behind it once, England and back on the boat and
02:26no problems at all, up and down the M6, not a bother, never let me down once.
02:33Any car can be unreliable if they're not maintained and cared for.
02:37You'd see a lot more Allegros on the road in the 90s than you'd have seen maybe Fords
02:41or other Vauxhalls or other cars of the era, seemed to be a bit more durable, but like
02:47most things Leyland produced it was good to poke fun at them.