This paper provides a broad review of the developments that have taken place within the past thirty years in the field now known as Advanced Vehicle Control Systems (AVCS). This long time horizon was chosen to ensure that significant findings from earlier generations of work are not overlooked today. Following a history of the international development of AVCS, several methods of classifying AVCS are introduced. The main body of the paper reviews the relevant literature in lateral, longitudinal and integrated control of road vehicles and summarizes the most significant findings from this work.