BBC4, 8pm, tonight - Maharajah's Motor Car

Yes I saw the majority of it, fascinating. Especially some of the specials, and the status of the brand.
Slightly broader subject, but I often wonder why cars like that have never been built since.1920-30s rolls royces, Cadillacs, duesenbergs, and other luxury marques, all seemed to build amazing hand built, over engineered super luxury vehicles,and as that programme showed, those rolls royces were amazingly reliable and durable... i guess there's just no market for cars like this even among the super rich today...

Simply put, the motor industry & society changed. Prior to WW2, marques such as R-R didn't ever produce the bodywork in house; customers would buy a rolling chassis, and then commission the coachbuilder of their choice to construct the body and interior. As such, there was an entire industry providing such services, and thus it was relatively easy for those who had the money to customise to the extent that the Maharajahs did. After WW2, firstly bodywork construction was brought in house, and then the decline in the use of the separate chassis meant that such radical customisation was no longer practical. Regarding quality of engineering, labour costs were also rising, and the postwar purchase tax on new vehicles (which increased vastly above a certain threshold), meant that luxury cars needed to be built down to a lower cost.

There were also various political issues which affected this, and not just the devastation caused by WW2. In India, independence in '47 created a political climate where those who previously would have been happy to ostentatiously display their wealth, were no longer so carefree, and / or even able to be so, had they wanted to. Thus the market for such unique coachbuilding dried up. In the UK, the immediate postwar atmosphere, with rationing and the slow rebuilding of the country meant that whilst there were still custom bodied luxury vehicles, they were in general relatively subdued. The main exception being Hooper, whose Empress line saloons & limos on various chassis, and also their 'Docker' Daimlers were probably the most well known coachbuilder to buck the trend. However the Docker Daimlers were considered vulgar at the time, and really didn't help Daimler's image with their regular customer base.

Hmmm, I may just set this on record tonight .

I think it's well acknowledged that, pre-BMW/VW, the Sultan of Brunei (and family, and entourage) with their requirements for non-standard, coachbuilt vehicles kept Rolls Royce and Bentley in the black, not to mention Jankel who often did the engineering work for RR/B.
They developed complete product lines and engine variations that were for the exclusive enjoyment of the Brunei Royals.

I think this is the Bentley Rapier:



Whatever it's name is, I saw it in the flesh once for about sixty seconds.

Bentley Val D'Iser - with hydraulic power for the front wheels at low speeds giving four wheel drive:



Again, saw one of these for a few seconds years ago. It was waiting for a roller shutter door to go up on the car park at the Grosvenor hotel.
The Val D'Iser isn't the same as the Provenance, though. The Provenance could be ordered directly from Jankel with either a Turbo R or a Silver Spirit as the base car but it had an extended load area rather than just an estate body with the same dimensions as the saloon.

Some Brunei RR/Bentley infoporn:
www.bentleyspotting.com/2007/03/sultan-of-brunei-darussalams-different.html
www.bentleyspotting.com/2007/08/sultan-of-brunei-darussalams-different.html

Point of pedantry that ALWAYS annoys me:

This is not a Brunei Rolls Royce, it's a Nissan 350z with a body kit.

The show on BBC4 highlighted that one of the main uses of the Rolls Royces was symbolic and a way of letting the general public and the foreign nationals present know that the Maharaja or the Maharani were fabulously weathly.
The Brunei royals used them (and their car parks full of custom Ferraris and Porches) in much the same way to a similar audience, mainly though to the foreigners extracting the oil.