It originated in Belgium in 1870 as Carrosserie Vanden Plas. These were generally well-liked and in concerning 1910 Warwick Wright (at the present Peugeot dealers), a British motor corporation, purchased the United Kingdom rights to the Vanden Plas name and recognized Vanden Plas (England) Ltd. During World Conflict I the company became involved in aircraft manufacture and was bought by the Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation based at Hendon, London. In 1917 a novel corporation, Vanden Plas (1917) Ltd.

, was formed. The company seems to have struggled to get back keen on coachbuilding and in 1922 went into receivership. The rights to the name plus the goodwill were purchased by the Deceive brothers who moved the company from Hendon to Kingsbury and built on the contacts with Bentley that had been complete. Between 1924 plus 1931, when Bentley unsuccessful, Vanden Plas built the bodies for over 700 of their chassis. The corporation also updated its production methods and took to making small batches of similar bodies.

With the eruption of war in 1939 the company went rear into aircraft work and coachbuilding stopped. Austin required to produce a luxury automobile plus approached Vanden Plas. From 1958 this also started to engage framework meeting and the Austin (by now British Motor Corporation or BMC) board recognised Vanden Plas as a motor manufacturer in its own right and in 1960 the Austin Princess became the Vanden Plas Princess.

From 1985 to 1989, Austin Rover complete expensive Vanden Plas models within its Metro, Maestro and Montego ranges. The Vanden Plas name continued to be second-hand by Jaguar on its Daimler variants, and American cars. The name ultimately ended up with the Rover Group, and Jaguar was compulsory to stop using it in the United Kingdom, though it continued to do so in America. Jaguar was subsequently acquired by Ford as were the North American human rights.

Placed on Jaguar models the Vanden Plas tag still signifies Jaguar's most luxurious variant. These comprise the United States plus some Middle East countries. The previous British car to have the Vanden Plas name was the Rover 75.

The rights to the design of the Rover 75 cars and the MG Collection were purchased by a Chinese firm, Nanjing Automotive. Ford purchased the Nomad name from BMW to defend the Land Rover name as of Shanghai Automotive who wanted the brand. The Vanden Plas person's name (intended for outside North America) and other Leyland names were purchased by Nanjing Automotive.