“So, Uncle Harvey’s brother married Miss Trina’s sister after she and Harv split up. That means Wayne is your uncle but also your cousin by marriage.”
Wait, what?
Most of us have portions of the family tree that are more convoluted than tax forms from Revenue Canada. As it happens, car companies aren’t much different.
Brands and marques can be swapped amongst the big corporations like hockey cards, with smaller companies content to team up with a larger entity in order to produce a vehicle they may otherwise not be able to build on their own.
An example of the latter would be the Subaru BRZ, a snappy coupe that surely wouldn’t exist without Toyota’s engineering might. Complicating matters, Toyota owns a roughly 20 per cent stake in Subaru, expanding on a 8.7 per cent share it acquired in 2005. These arrangements are more common than one might think, but do not necessarily include an outright ownership of any particular brand.
Suggesting the inclusion of these partnerships caused our Managing Editor’s head to spin, even more than it does after his grog ration of cheap morning vodka. In the interest of clarity and brevity, this post will focus on brands which are instead just wholly owned by a parent company. Where appropriate, we’ll also briefly mention brands primarily sold on other continents.
But you’re on your own trying to figure out where Uncle Harv sits at the head table.
General Motors
- Buick
- Cadillac
- Chevrolet
- GMC
- Several Chinese brands
Had we been assembling this list about ten years ago, General Motors would have had several more branches on its family tree. Following its bankruptcy in 2009, GM shed several brands — some of which will appear under other companies’ headers later in this list.
There are four remaining makes the automaker sells in Canada: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC. It’s worth noting GM’s brands in China, since The General now sells nearly as many cars in that country as it does here at home. Thanks to the, erm, unique manner in which China’s auto industry is structured, GM has its hands in brands like Wuling and Baojun but does not own them outright.
Ford Motor Company
- Ford
- Lincoln
Blue Oval diehards will recognize that vehicles bearing the Lincoln insignia are underpinned with many Ford parts but, thanks recent investments in engineering and styling efforts, it may not be immediately obvious to the casual observer.
Given the symbiotic relationship, it is natural that where one goes, the other must follow. The suits in Dearborn decided some time ago that Ford needn’t bother with the minutiae of making sedans and hatchbacks, turning their attention to SUVs and pickup trucks (and the Mustang, of course). Absent of car-based homework to crib, Lincoln is also moving to an all-SUV lineup.
Stellantis
- Alfa Romeo
- Chrysler
- Citroen
- Dodge
- Fiat
- Jeep
- Lancia
- Maserati
- Opel
- Peugeot
- Ram
- Vauxhall
Stella-who? If you’re unfamiliar with this name, you’re certainly not alone. It is the umbrella name for a company formed from the recent merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Groupe PSA. The former brought brands such as Ram and Jeep to the table, while the latter held title to marques such as Peugeot and Lancia.
Those of you with long memories will recall that Opel and Vauxhall used to be under the charge of General Motors. Those two brands were sold off to Groupe PSA in the years following GM’s attempts to clean up its balance sheets after the 2009 bankruptcy.
Volkswagen Group
- Audi
- Bentley
- Bugatti
- Lamborghini
- Porsche
- VW
As a juggernaut on both sides of the pond, Volkswagen controls a massive empire with global sales of very nearly 11 million units. This gives the group massive leverage in terms of designing and producing vehicles, permitting it to stretch costs for a new platform or engine over several different brands.
Case in point: the Audi Q7/Q8, Porsche Cayenne, Lamborghini Urus, Bentley Bentayga, and Volkswagen Touareg all spring from the same roots. While some of them may utilize different powertrains and are fitted with vastly different interior trappings, their underpinnings are a lot more similar than their individual brands would like you to believe.
Toyota Motors Corporation
- Daihatsu
- Lexus
- Toyota
This Japanese giant regularly challenges VW in the race to manufacture the greatest number of vehicles for a single marque per annum. Its namesake brand was founded in 1937, popping up in the American market about 20 years later, hawking a series of efficient cars in the face of Detroit’s gas-guzzling monsters. The rest, as they say, is history.
Seeking to carve itself a slice of the luxury car pie, it introduced the Lexus brand in 1989 as a foil to the likes of Mercedes and BMW. It quickly cemented itself as a major player in that game, stealing customers and executives alike from ze Germans. As for budget Daihatsu, a brand not sold here, Toyota bought the place in 2016.
BMW Group
- BMW
- Mini
- Rolls-Royce
Headquartered in Munich with assembly facilities around the world, BMW has been making vehicles since the First World War. As the purveyor of luxury cars, often with a sporty bent, the BMW brand is one of just a few to enjoy such longevity while keeping the same name and logo. Fun fact: the blue-and-white roundel represents Bavaria’s national colours and not a spinning airplane propeller.
The Mini brand was brought into the stable after BMW’s parent company purchased Rover Group of Britain in 1994. Fraught with problems and causing financial losses, BMW dumped all of Rover’s brands save for the iconic Mini just six years later. Around the same time, it also raided Britain’s cupboard for the storied Rolls-Royce name.
Daimler AG
- Mercedes-Benz
- Mercedes-AMG
- Smart
Pedants will argue the AMG suffix does not warrant its own mention in the Daimler hierarchy, claiming it’s merely a sub-brand to the larger Mercedes marque. In fact, it is an actual subsidiary that hires its own engineers and stamps its name on a range of Benz models with gonzo levels of performance. While the Smart brand has vanished from our shores, it is still a going concern elsewhere.
Honda Motor Company
- Honda
- Acura
Sometimes referred to as ‘Soichiro’s House’ in tribute to the company’s founder, Soichiro Honda, this brand got its start making motorcycles in Japan before branching out into the business of four wheels. Its first production automobile was actually a mini pickup truck that went on sale in 1963.
Its young apprentice, Acura, was launched in 1986 as what’s generally considered to be the first Japanese automotive luxury brand. Showing up for duty a solid three years before Lexus, it has enjoyed success with cars such as the sporty Integra Type R of the late ’90s and early 2000s. Its original mid-engined sports car, introduced in 1990 as the NSX, showed up as a dependable and practical alternative to Italian exotics and is largely credited with forcing the latter to up its reliability game.
Nissan Motors
- Nissan
- Infiniti
- Mitsubishi
Based in Yokohama, Nissan has been churning out vehicles since the early 1930s. The company is actually the world’s largest manufacturer of electric vehicles thanks to its all-electric Leaf and related efforts. Infiniti is a luxury brand in the same vein as Lexus and Acura, while the recently revived Datsun name is applied to entry-level cars in developing nations.
While we’re not making it a habit of mentioning half-siblings in this post about family trees, it’s worth noting two brands that are deeply ingrained in the decision-making at Nissan. Renault has a nearly 50-per-cent voting stake in Nissan, while the latter holds a 34-per-cent controlling stake in Mitsubishi. The triumvirate is often referred to as the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Alliance, even though they are not wholly owned subsidiaries of each other.
Tata Motors
- Jaguar
- Land Rover
These two brands were once owned by Ford, so one may be excused for thinking their levers are still pulled by execs in Dearborn. Tata Motors is part of an enormous conglomerate in India, of which Jaguar and Land Rover are a subsidiary. Don’t worry; its headquarters is still in England.
Hyundai Motor Company
- Hyundai
- Kia
- Genesis
These brands have roots in South Korea, showing up for the first time on Canadian shores in the mid-’80s with the Hyundai Pony. They’ve since grown to include nearly a dozen models in their fleet, expanding into the luxury area with the Genesis brand — not unlike Toyota did with Lexus over 30 years ago. Kia is minority owned by Hyundai, explaining some of the overlap in their products. In turn, Kia is a minority owner in several different Hyundai subsidiaries.
Geely Auto Group
While the parent brand of Geely might not be a household name in our country, it is in fact an enormous privately held automotive company based in China. In addition to peddling cars under its own banner to residents of that country, it owns the Volvo brand thanks to a deal with Ford about ten years ago. It also acquired a majority stake in Lotus a few years later. The former continues to be headquartered in Sweden, where it enjoys a bit of autonomy from its Chinese owners.
Independent Brands
- Mazda
- Ferrari
- Subaru
- McLaren
- Tesla
- Aston Martin
These slick half-dozen companies are currently going it alone, navigating the cutthroat and expensive world of automotive manufacturing without a full-time dance partner.
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Wait, so who makes that? A breakdown of which automakers own which brands - Driving
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