Epiphone was acquired by Gibson in 1957 so Gibson could suppress the competition. In 1963, Epi made the Excellente, which was top-of-the-line over both brands. Not a sales success, only 139 were made between 1963-1969. Loretta Lynn famously had one.
https://www.vintageguitar.com/20489/the-epiphone-excellente/
Nowadays, Epiphone is making some nice guitars in Indonesia (as well as in Bozeman) and resurrected the Excellente in a Masterbilt edition to strong reviews. I grabbed one a few weeks ago and it has a loud voice, very different in character to my others. It's very heavy and well made- I'm quite pleased with it.