It's....subtitled in French?

Perhaps this particular ad ran in France.

@tentacles: Since Leyland wasn't making any money, that was much cheaper than reshooting or redubing the commercial.

What can be even more hellish than a Malaise Era BL car? Right, a Malaise Era BL car with hydraulic suspension!

Did their cars make as much sense as this commercial? I suspect they did, alas.

This car (Geek hat on) was perverse. Not only did it have hydrolastic suspension, but also it could have a transverse straight 6 engine with front-wheel-drive. Also, it looked like a hatchback but was actually a sedan.

And it was only available as an Austin Princess for a year (as well as being available as a Wolsely and a Morris). Then it became called simply Princess until 1981.

(geek hat off)....(a bit)

I'd rather drive the Citroen H van in the ad.

If the car went by ferry from England, had an English owner, and an English chauffeur, why is it LHD?

I hope Archibald gave his manservant a sound thrashing for his insolence.

@Maxichamp: Again perversity on the part of BL.

@PeteJayhawk:

I`d expect no less than 6 of the best !!

Her Royal Majesty's brightest engineers attempt at creating an homage to the AMC Eagle. The end result is more along the lines of a Citroen Citation.

The car actually remained rust-free for the duration of the shoot!

@Beluga: am not so sure about that. If I remember well, you had to pay extra to get a working non rust model.

In the 1970s, British Leyland apparently had such bad quality control they put the steering wheel on the wrong side.

George probably needs to be careful about la clap and le syphilis if he and Archibald continue picking up trollops on the side of the road...

@Maxichamp:

The more pressing question is how did a Princess survive riding on a ferry and STILL manage to end up being more substantial than a pile of rust?

@Rust-MyEnemy:

I'm pretty sure a prototype replacement Mini(dubbed the 9X) included a transverse 6. It was cheaper because the original Mini could not actually be made at a profit.

Did this British Princess bounce off a pillar in a Parisian tunnel too?

@halfshaft: This Princess is more of an Anne, less of a Diana.

@Rust-MyEnemy:

...until they eventually did install a tailgate, at which point it became the Ambassador.

And these things had bizarrely aerodynamically efficient roofs, due to them being slightly convex.

The Land Crab, on the other hand...

my overriding memory of this car is the vinyl roof - a colleague of my mum had one which looked (more) awful (than usual), as her horse used to chew the vinyl. She thought of it as a theft deterrent.

Good God, that car makes the Citation desirable, even if it does go 4500 yards around a track while filled with water.

@Stoatmaster: Aha! But the Ambassador sucked!

The Princess and the Rover SD1 were good futuristic car designs for the time — 1980 cars in 1976. The Wolseley variant (go go BL brand engineering) is particularly attractive, it looked like a 1980s Lancia. The vinyl roof though, argghh!