>>28609720
To be fair, Vanden Plas used to be a literal coachbuilder known for fine quality and luxury, which could trace its roots all the way back to 1870. When they transitioned to working on cars, they became a favoured coachbuilder for Bentley, Alvis and for Austin's limousines. But then when they were bought out by Austin and merged into BMC, management realised quickly that they could sell some of their regular cars with a really high mark-up just by sending them down to Vanden Plas' Kingsbury works for a bit of extra trim and polish. Eventually, after Kingsbury was closed down, the Vanden Plas name became little more than a trim level.