You don’t even know about FAW and General Motors? Do you really understand cars?

Acquisitions and mergers between car brands seem to be happening all the time, and even if you memorize them by rote, you can't keep up with the speed of their updates. After all, even general-purpose cars like Vauxhall and Opel that have been used for decades are now closely related to French brands such as Peugeot and Citroën. In fact, just being able to memorize Volkswagen's sub-brands is enough to make you the biggest car fan among your friends. But if you are not satisfied with this, then follow me and read on!

BMW's predecessor was the engine manufacturer Rapp Motorenwerke, which established the Bayerski Motorenwerke Company in 1917. The company merged with the Bayerische Flugzeug-Werke Aircraft Company in 1922. In the following year, it began to shift from only producing engines to manufacturing motorcycles. It was not until 1928 that it began to produce cars. The current structure of the BMW Group is quite simple. In addition to BMW cars and motorcycles, there are also Rolls-Royce and MINI. However, although there are not many brands, the BMW Group owns Rolls-Royce, the world's number one ultra-luxury brand, which is enough to be envied.

Since we are talking about Rolls-Royce, let’s talk about its story. Rolls-Royce, the UK's top ultra-luxury car manufacturer, was established as early as 1906. However, due to poor management, huge expenditures and low profit margins, it had operational difficulties. In 1972, Rolls-Royce declared bankruptcy and reorganized Rolls-Royce. aviation authorities and automobile companies. The British government bought the Aviation Authority to produce aircraft engines, while Germany's Volkswagen bought car companies, including Bentley, owned by Rolls-Royce.

Rolls-Royce's sales began to decline in the 1990s, and with the outbreak of the world economic crisis in 1998, the public could no longer afford it. At that time, BMW happened to have no top sub-brand that could enhance the B-level of the brand. After discussions between the two parties, Volkswagen kept Bentley, while BMW took over Rolls-Royce. Since then, BMW launched a new model Ghost based on the 7 Series chassis, and it was an instant success. I have to say that for Rolls-Royce, BMW is definitely the biggest savior!

Daimler-Motorum-Gesellschaft (DMG) was founded in 1899. In 1926, the company merged with Benz &Cie. Becomes Daimler-Benz AG. Daimler has more than just one brand: Mercedes-Benz. Compared with BMW, the company's structure is quite complex.

Why is Mitsubishi FUSO owned by Daimler? In fact, FUSO has always been a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Motors, mainly producing commercial vehicles, ranging from various types of trucks to passenger cars. DaimlerChrysler now owns 43% of FUSO's shares and has become the largest shareholder by increasing its shares in FUSO. FUSO has also become an independent company from a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Motors. Mitsubishi Motors still owns 42% of FUSO's shares, while the other 15% is held by the Mitsubishi Consortium.

If the composition of BMW is very simple, then Ford has to add the word "more". Henry Ford co-founded the Ford Motor Company with investors in 1903. In 1908, he launched the Model T car, creating a true "people's car." By 1927, Ford had produced about 15 million Model T cars.

Although Ford once temporarily owned brands such as Aston Martin and Volvo, its current structure is quite simple, with only one Lincoln besides Ford. The founder of Lincoln was Henry Madion Leland, known as the "Master of Precision Production" in the American automobile industry. Lincoln was officially established in 1917. In 1922, Henry Ford's son Edsel persuaded his father to buy Lincoln for $8 million, but Henry Ford was not interested in it at the time.

Not long after, the Leland father and son had a dispute with Henry Ford over issues such as autonomy and shareholder responsibility. Ford fired the Leland father and son in anger and made his own son Edsey the president of Lincoln. Leland Sr. continued to argue with Ford in newspapers and in court until his death in 1932. Doesn’t this story sound bloody?

General Motors was founded by William C. Durant in 1908. Soon after the company was founded, it acquired many automobile brands such as Oldsmobile and Cadillac. However, General Motors, the owner of many well-known American brands, went bankrupt in 2009, which directly led to the collapse of brands such as Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer. The brands currently owned by General Motors include: Baojun, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Holden (Australia), Jiefang, and Wuling.

Holden, owned by General Motors, may be little known in China, but it is actually an Australian brand that specializes in cars that Australians love - sedan trucks and UTEs. On October 20, 2017, the last vehicle produced by Holden Motors rolled off the assembly line at the Adelaide plant in South Australia. Since the first Holden vehicle "48-215" rolled off the production line in 1948, Holden has finally finished its life. At present, its Commodore model is the Buick Regal badged car.

There is also such a Chinese brand under General Motors - Jiefang, which is also known as FAW-GM that many people don't know about. FAW-GM Light Commercial Vehicle Co., Ltd. was established in 2009 with an investment of 600 million yuan from GM China and all assets of FAW Light Commercial Vehicle Co., Ltd. Each party holds 50% of the shares, with a total project investment of 2 billion yuan and a registered capital of 1.2 billion yuan. The joint venture operation period is 30 years, and the joint venture company is registered in Changchun City, Jilin Province. The main vehicle model produced is the Jiefang brand light truck.

Honda Motor Company was founded in 1948 by Soichiro Honda and Takeo Fujisawa and began selling its first motorcycle in 1949. Thanks to its success in the motorcycle market, Honda entered the automotive industry in 1963 with the small T360 truck and S500 roadster and became one of the most well-known automakers in the world.

In 1986, in order to enter the high-end car market in North America, including the United States and Canada, Honda created a new brand - Acura, targeting the preferences of North American consumers, and launched sales through an independent second sales network. Currently, the Honda Group only has three major brands: Honda cars, Honda motorcycles and Acura. Compared with Honda's huge sales in the global market, the number of brands under the Honda Group is indeed very small.

Hyundai Motor was originally a construction company that started in 1947, but due to its rapid growth, it entered the automobile industry in 1967. The company originally built the Cortina under license from Ford and launched its first autonomous model, the Pony, in 1976. Kia was founded in 1944 as a company specializing in manufacturing bicycle parts. The company entered the automobile market in 1962 by licensing the K360, a three-wheeled van truck produced by Mazda. Originally, Hyundai and Kia were two independent companies, but in 1997, the Asian financial crisis led to Kia's bankruptcy. The Korean government came forward and required Hyundai to acquire Kia. After that, the Hyundai-Kia Group was officially established.

In addition to the Hyundai and Kia brands, there is currently a high-end brand under the group called "Genesis", which many people may not know. But when it comes to Genesis, you must have heard of it. In fact, Genesis is the new name of Genesis in the Chinese market. Putting aside the product strength, Genesis's domestic awareness is too low, so its retention rate is extremely low...the few units it has are probably all serving South Korea. The senior management of the domestic branch of the company.

At present, PSA Group has officially merged with FCA, and there are an explosion of sub-brands. On FCA's side, the Italian brand Fiat owns: Fiat, Maserati, Alfa Romeo and Lancia. The Chrysler brands include Dodge, RAM, Ram, Chrysler and Jeep. PSA owns five European brands: Peugeot, Citroën, Opel, Vauxhall and DS.

Most of the others have heard of it, but some students may not be familiar with this Lancia. In fact, it was a famous Italian high-performance car manufacturer that was very popular back then. Now Lancia can only make some "little garbage" to survive. As for Maserati, its high price has nothing to do with the word "down-to-earth". Only Alfa Romeo has regained some of its lost market share with its revival in recent years. Perhaps after the merger, the sales of these brands will increase.

In the 1970s, the "family" of Vauxhall, Opel and Holden began sharing technology. It seems that many models are actually the same car. The British market has Vauxhall labels, Australia has Holden labels, and other regions have Opel labels. The three brands are completely labeling madmen. Not long ago, Opel and Vauxhall were acquired by PSA from General Motors. In the days after the merger, Vauxhall is expected to focus on the British market, while Opel will focus on Germany. No need to think about it, I will definitely continue to change the label.

After the integration of FCA and PSA, PSA is bound to help the FCA Group regain its glory in the European market. And its brands such as 508, 5008, and 3008 (domestic 4008) can safely and boldly transfer technology to FCA, which lacks large models. PSA has also regained the opportunity to return to the US market.

Renault formed an alliance with Nissan in 1999 and acquired Mitsubishi for $2.3 billion in October 2016. The combined company will have no centralized headquarters. Among them, Renault is headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, a suburb of Paris, France, Nissan is in Yokohama, Japan, and Mitsubishi is located in Minato-ku, Tokyo.

Lada 4x4 Vision Concept

If you want to talk about any interesting brands in this group, it must be Lada. The older generation must have memories, but how did this Russian brand become a subsidiary of a Japanese group? In fact, it was acquired by the then Renault-Nissan as early as May 2012. In addition, in fact, the reason why Renault-Nissan was able to acquire Mitsubishi was because Mitsubishi was tricked. Because Nissan reported Mitsubishi for emissions fraud, an investigation revealed that the fraud was indeed taking place. Mitsubishi lost a lot of money and was even unable to continue operating! So Nissan took the opportunity to acquire one-third of Mitsubishi's shares.

Toyota Motor is headquartered in Toyota City, Japan. The group currently has 3 sub-brands. Toyota started as an automatic loom factory, and its automobile division built the G1 pickup truck in 1935 and entered the automobile market. Two years later, the automotive division was spun off from the company to form Toyota Motor Corporation. Since then, Toyota has produced its first model, the GA truck, which is an upgraded version of the G1 pickup truck.

Among Toyota's subsidiaries, only Lexus is relatively familiar to us. In the early 1980s, Toyota was regarded as a representative of low-end cars. In August 1983, Mr. Eiji Toyoda, chairman of the Japanese industrial giant Toyota Motor, held a high-level confidential meeting and made an important decision - to create a top-level car that would be proud of the world's automobile industry. In 1989, the heavily invested Lexus brand went on the market, launching the flagship model LS and the entry-level sedan ES. Two years later, it became the best-selling imported luxury brand in the United States.

Volkswagen's headquarters is located in Wolfsburg, Germany. Its history begins before the outbreak of World War II. After the outbreak of World War II, Volkswagen began producing military vehicles for the army. After the war, the iconic Beetle was born. As of the end of production last year, it had produced more than 21 million.

As we all know, Volkswagen has many sub-brands. Not only does it have the world's top supercar Bugatti, but it also has the motorcycle brand DUCATI from Italy. Of course, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche, and Audi are also affiliated with the Volkswagen Group, and many models among them share platforms. For example: Urus, Q8, Bentayga, Cayenne, Q7, and Touareg are all from the same MLB Evo platform. In addition, in addition to its own truck brand, Volkswagen also has two professional truck brands, MAN and SCANIA, with a wide industry coverage.

Indian industrialist Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata established a trading company in Bombay in 1868. The company has been involved in and operated various industries such as textiles and luxury hotels. It entered the steel industry in 1907 and established an automobile company in 1945. It acquired Jaguar and Land Rover in 2008 and is still headquartered in Mumbai.

We won’t talk about Jaguar Land Rover, but we can talk about TATA MOTORS. It was founded in 1945 and holds 59% of the Indian market. Its previous annual turnover was as high as US$2 billion. TATA's cars are well-known in the world (except China). The Indica, a small car launched in 1998, has a stylish appearance and low price. It received more than 110,000 orders in a short period of time after it was launched, and once set a record in the history of Indian car sales. Record. Tata's current main products include small cars, 4-drive off-road vehicles, buses, medium and heavy trucks, etc. It is also providing military vehicles to the Indian military.

Li Shufu founded Zhejiang Geely Holding Group in 1986 and Geely Automobile in 1997. Although Geely is still a relatively new group in the world, due to a series of smart acquisitions, Geely already owns shares in some mainstream car brands and has absorbed many advanced car-making technologies. . The most well-known acquisition is Volvo. Since Geely acquired Volvo, the brand's domestic sales have also experienced a surge, turning it from an extremely niche Nordic car company to a more widely known brand.

Many people may have never heard of the Proton brand. It was established in 1983 and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of DRB-HICOM. Mainly engaged in automobiles and automobile parts. In 1996, Proton successfully acquired the British LOTUS (Lotus Group) International Company. Until June 23, 2017, Geely Holding Group signed a final agreement with DRB-HICOM Group to acquire 49.9% of DRB-HICOM's shares in Proton Motors and 51% of Lotus.

In addition to Proton, Geely also launched a joint venture with Volvo to launch the Lynk & Co brand. However, although the brand is a joint venture, it is still classified as a Chinese company, focusing on the high-end market of independent brands, and the Lynk & Co 03 Cyan racing car is still on the track. It has very good results and can be considered a very successful new brand in recent years.

The above is the latest composition of the world's major automobile groups. After seeing so many car groups and sub-brands in one go, is it hard to remember? It doesn't matter! Click to save it and take it out to have a look when you brag to your friends later!