Austin's 3-litre was launched in 1967 a full year before the car was available for sale. The ADO 61 project started out as a collaboration with Rolls-Royce to build a smaller luxury car, possibly a Bentley Bengal or Rolls-Royce Rangoon, but Rolls-Royce pulled out of the project (wisely!). That left Austin to shove in a revised version of its C-series engine and try to make a luxury car out of it. Alec Issigonis had nothing to do with the ADO 61, even though it used an extended form of his ADO 17 bodyshell. After 3 years and less than 10,000 cars sold the Austin 3-litre was deemed unnecessary by the new British Leyland board.