How many substantive brands of motor car have there been since motoring began? How many are still alive today? How much have the dominant car-manufacturing countries increased and changed? Fran
There have been more than 200 main brands (and almost 1,000 if you count all their cousin-brothers, living or dead) around the world since Peugeot became the first formal car manufacturer in 1889.
An “Encyclopedia of the Car” covering the first Century of motoring from 1890 to 1990 gives a potted history of 150 “makes”, their model evolutions and changes of ownership... in 745 large pages weighing three kilos!
Today, there are more than 50 brands in the global mainstream, including many of the original pioneers.
Let’s be clear, we are talking about passenger “cars”, not the many other types of motorised vehicles. Your question is specifically about “brands”; many of those still wearing the “badge” already were or have become parts of gigantic motor and diverse industrial groups and are manufactured or assembled in many places other than their mother country, using materials and finished components from many dozens of different places.
To illustrate, I have a non-specific recollection that some models of the very “German” Mercedes Benz include materials and parts provided by or made in more than 40 different countries. And trade, economics and politics have encouraged them to establish assembly/manufacturing hubs well away from home.
Even badges that are no longer pinned to radiator grilles and boot lids are still in the DNA of many current vehicles. For example, the sporty British brand MG (the evocative initials of a British company with the stupendously unimaginative title of “Motor Group”) born in 1924, died in 1980, was reincarnated in 1985, is in now in the genes of an electric car made in... China.
Many of the world’s brands are partly owned by each other, and sharing of technology and parts is widespread among makes that marketing people treat as unique.
A remarkably high proportion of the global car industry is now controlled in some way by about a dozen giant conglomerates.
If one of your friends is called Sherlock Holmes, ask him what Fiat might have to do (or not) with Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Ferrari, Bugati, Isotta Fraschini, Itala, Autobianchi, De Tomaso. After all, Fiat is short for Farbricca Italiana Automobili Torino, founded in 1899.
Mitsubishi, for example, is undoubtedly a major brand worldwide, but for many decades its motoring arm was a minor part of an industrial giant which made office lifts and ships...among other things. And still does.
Pioneers
On a national basis, the absolute pioneers were France - Peugeot, De Dion Bouton (the first car ever imported to Kenya), Darracq (which later became Sunbeam Talbot), and Panhard (which became Citroen) - was quickly followed by Germany (yes, Benz & Cie, then Daimler, now Mercedes Benz), and Italy (Fiat) amid more from France (Panhard, Renault), Germany (Opel) and Czecoslovakia (Tatra) ...all still in the 19th Century.
Pre War
After the turn of the century and before World War I (which stopped everything else, including production of David Brown Tractors – who would produce the Aston Martin 40 years later) the USA (Caddilac, Ford, Chevrolet and a dozen others like Studebaker, now subsumed or defunct), the UK (Rolls Royce, Rover, Austin, Morris, Vauxhall) and additions from Italy (Lancia and Alfa), and Germany (Horch – precursor to DKW, Auto Union and Audi) brought the total to a couple of dozen. Japan’s Mitsubishi launched a Fiat-based car in 1917.
Between Wars
Between the wars there was a rush of new start-up companies, and more nations joined the race: Sweden (Volvo), Japan (Nissan, then Toyota) and Czechoslovakia (Skoda...a brand, like the Yugo, that has outlived the country that made it!). Germany added BMW and Volkswagen to their stable, and Borgward, which now lives in China.
Austria launched the Steyr – a hugely successful arms manufacturer that also made aircraft engines and bicycles - which was put out of business by peace treaties after World War I and instead made some exceptionally high-quality cars (Ferdinand Porsche was their freelance designer) in the Steyr-Daimler-Puch conglomerate before resuming its original bang-bang business at the start of World War II.
Only one brand was added “during” World War II (1939-1945) – the Jeep, designed by Willys-Overland on a military brief from the still “neutral” US Government...a few months before the US entered the Warn when “Pearl Harbour” was bombed in December 1941.
Jeep had a wonderful customer base called the US Military, and became legend. The company that made the Zero bombers which attacked Pearl Harbour now makes cars.
Post War
Immediately after the War, the man who invented the VW Beetle started his own company, called Porsche, and the British produced their answer to the Jeep: Land-Rover. Italy added the Ferrari in 1947.
France’s Citroen had been “in existence” since 1919, but it was the arrival of the 2CV in 1948 that propelled them to the bigger leagues. Mention must be made of one of the most ingenious cars of all time – the two-stroke Trabant – which put East Germany back on the road in the 50s. It was the Eastern Bloc “Beetle”, with a waiting list longer than its production line.
Since Peugeot began in 1889, over 200 major car brands—and nearly 1,000 including all variants—have emerged worldwide.
Photo credit: Shutterstock
Spain’s first car was the Seat (cloned from Fiat). Japan’s Fuji Heavy Industries recovered enough by 1953 to launch Subaru; Isuzu was re-launched, and in 1960 another Japanese company (which began by making corks!) introduced the Mazda; South Korea brought the Hyundai; long-rooted Jaguar and Aston Martin became street prominent in the 60s and 70s, and Land-Rover dragged the world into an entirely new concept with the Range-Rover.
Russia’s vehicles have not generally been offered or appealed to the world market, with the exception of the Lada (based on a Fiat).
The Russian UAV – a compact 4WD with some very good simple design features but very crude engineering - was briefly on sale in Kenya.
BTVs like Africar (made of plywood) were similarly transient.
As the consequences of war receded, British companies produced a rash of new brands, including Hillman, Sunbeam, Triumph, Riley and Wolseley (all subsumed by Chrysler, PSA or British Leyland in the 70s and 80s).
This was also the time of mergers and acquisitions in the USA, rationalising a too-numerous-to-name list under giant umbrellas like GM and Chrysler.
Into this maw, in the wake of Husdson and Nash, went legendary names like Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Saturn, Hummer and AMC and even non-American brands like Germany’s Opel, Sweden’s Saab, and much else. Kenya’s Isuzu Uhuru was...an Opel, made by GM.
It was an era that produced some of the shortest-lived brands – Canada’s Bricklin lasted two years, and USA’s De Lorean seven years.
In this period Holland moved focus from military vehicles to small cars with the DAF, which had a unique V-belt “variomatic” transmission system (only now being equalled by others). The Dutch tried again with the Spyker at the start of this Century. Still a work in progress?
The 80s and 90s were more about group business manoeuvres than entirely new brands, but Malaysia brought the Proton, South Korea introduced Daewoo (later absorbed by GM), and three Japanese manufacturers rebranded their separate luxury car operations - Honda called theirs Acura, Toyota launched Lexus, and Nissan offered the Infiniti.
The biggest “new” name was Tata, a gigantic industrial and investment conglomerate from India, which counted trucks among its many products since 1945, and produced its first passenger vehicles from 1991.
Post Milennium
Since the start of the 21st century, electrification has come to the fore with Tesla (USA), Byd Auto (China), Rivian (USA), NIO (China), Lucis Motors/Atieva (USA), XPeng (China) and VinFast (Vietnam). The majority of established manufacturers around the world have also launched an assault on the battery.
The “national” identity of brands is nowadays much blurred by increasingly diverse sourcing and local assembly, which ranges from “semi-knocked down” to “completely knocked down” kits, with very varied “local content” substitution levels, to almost full off-site manufacture. Many brand names and some countries, perhaps omitted here, exist in that sphere. Australia and Brazil, for instance.
