This is actually a bug in the vlan package, the problem is if a vlan has a mtu set that is higher than the vlan raw device mtu, it fails while being ifup'ed, e.g.:
auto eth1 iface eth1 inet static address 1.2.3.4/24 mtu 9000 auto eth1.10 iface eth1.10 inet static address 6.7.8.9/24 mtu 9000 then 'sudo ifup eth1.10' fails, if eth1 has not been brought up yet.
