When is an Allegro not an Allegro? When it is a Vanden Plas, of course! Although most of us refer to the model as the Vanden Plas Allegro, officially it started out in 1974 as the Vanden Plas 150 0, a replacement for the ADO16 Vanden Plas Princess 130 0 (whose family also included the Austin, Morris and Wolseley 130 0 as well as the Riley Kestrel). Under the bonnet of the new Allegro -based Vanden Plas was an E-series engine of 14 85cc. This had been developed to replace the A and B-series units, and also to spawn a bigger six- c ylinder variant. As things turned out, the A-series soldiered on and the B-series was replaced by both the O -series and the E-series.
The E-series had a long stroke and a chain- driven overhead cam, which made it a very tall unit. That is the main reason why the Allegro family had to have such a high bonnet line. The E-series was introduced in the Austin Maxi in 1969, and effectively died out with the demise of the Allegro in 1982. It was then lightly t weaked into the R-series for the Maestro, before being more comprehensively altered to create the S-series with belt drive to
