The Princess is a family car that was produced in the United Kingdom by British Leyland from 1975 until 1981. The car inherited a front-wheel drive / transverse engine configuration from its predecessor, the BMC ADO17 range. This was still unusual in Europe for full-sized family cars and gave the Princess a cabin space advantage when compared with similarly sized cars from competing manufacturers.
The car, which was given the design code ADO71, was originally marketed as the Austin / Morris / Wolseley 18–22 series. In 1975 the range was renamed "Princess". This was a new marque created by British Leyland [2] although it had previously been used as a model name on the Austin Princess limousine from 1947 to 1956. The Princess is often referred to as the Austin Princess, but this name was not used in the home (UK) market. It was, however, used in New Zealand. The car later appeared in revamped form as the Austin Ambassador, which was produced from 1982 until 1984 and only ever sold in Britain.
Princess sales, although strong for the 1976 model year, tailed off more quickly than forecast, primarily because of quality and reliability issues. Also by 1977 many of its competitors had gained a versatile fifth door which the Princess lacked, and the medium large-car sector fell victim to a poor economic climate further compounded by the OPEC oil crisis of the day. Total production amounted to 224,942 units.
The base engine fitted was the 1800 cc B-Series pushrod straight-4. The lay-out closely followed that of the predecessor model, but access to the alternator/water pump was greatly improved by exploiting the car's longer nose to fit a front-mounted radiator. The basic design of the engine dated back to 1947 and the unit with a claimed output of 84 bhp was notably lacking in power, although torque was reasonable. The larger engine, fitted to upper models in the range, was a 2200 cc E-series SOHC straight-6. This was very smooth and a much more modern engine, with a published output figure of 110 bhp, but was still not hugely powerful. The Princess was a big car, and the engine choice gave lacklustre performance, not helped by the provision of only a 4-speed manual gearbox (a Borg-Warner automatic transmission was an option, but performance with this was by all accounts positively lethargic). A 5-speed gearbox might have improved top end speed, economy and NVH: alas BL funds never stretched this far in development.
During the early 1980s an example was spotted in Littlemore, Oxford (not far from the factory) bearing an "1800D" badge on its boot lid and the sound it made confirmed that there was a diesel engine fitted. This was probably a test-bed in previous times, most likely powered by the diesel version of the 1800cc B-Series engine.
Suspension used BL's Hydragas system, and was very soft and smooth; the intention was to offer as smooth a ride as the Citroën CX and this was almost achieved. The Princess's ride was excellent, and comfort in general was a selling point; the car was roomy, reasonably well-appointed for the time, the seating was comfortable, and overall the driving experience – provided you didn't care that much about performance – was excellent.
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