40 Fun Facts About Car Brands

Which carmaker's name blazed in lights on the Eiffel Tower from 1925 to 1934, then the world's biggest advert?

Citroën turned the Eiffel Tower into what Guinness World Records logged as the world's largest advertising sign. Founder André Citroën also sponsored motor expeditions across the Sahara, Asia and Africa to show off his cars.

The circle-and-arrow badge on Volvo cars is the ancient alchemical symbol for which metal?

Iron's ancient alchemical sign, a circle with an arrow, is what Volvo calls its 'iron mark', paired with the diagonal slash across the grille. A separate Volvo Trademark Holding company exists just to own and police the badge.

The Smart city car began as a 1990s joint venture between Mercedes-Benz and which Swiss watch company?

Swatch even gave the car its name: Smart stands for 'Swatch Mercedes ART'. Swatch boss Nicolas Hayek wanted a car built and personalised the way his colourful cheap watches were.

Henry Leland named his 1917 luxury marque after which US president, the first he had ever voted for?

Lincoln got its name because Abraham Lincoln was the first president Leland ever voted for, in 1864. The new company was financed by a $10 million contract to build Liberty V12 aircraft engines.

Which American marque, the oldest still active, was founded in 1899 by a Scottish-born inventor of enamelled bathtubs?

Buick became the oldest surviving American car brand in 2004, when GM closed its older Lansing-born sibling. David Dunbar Buick's method of coating cast bathtubs with vitreous enamel is still in use today.

The name of Hyundai, founded in 1967 by Chung Ju-yung, translates from Korean as what?

Modernity is what Hyundai means, a fitting name for the company whose Ulsan complex is the world's largest single integrated car plant, with capacity for more than 1.5 million vehicles a year.

Which GM brand, named for an Odawa chief who led a 1763 uprising near Detroit, was shut after GM's 2009 bankruptcy?

Pontiac's first logo of 1926 showed the chief himself, and the cars were built in Pontiac, Michigan, a city also named after him. The division died in GM's Chapter 11 reorganisation.

The name of the East German Trabant, a two-stroke people's car built from 1957, is the German word for what?

Satellite, or companion, is what Trabant means, an astronomical term for a moon orbiting a planet. The car itself grew out of a planning process meant to design a three-wheeled motorcycle.

The budget brand Dacia, founded in 1966, takes its name from a Roman province covering much of which modern country?

Romania's state carmaker kept the ancient name of its homeland, and after 33 years in government hands it was sold to a French group in 1999. Today the no-frills brand sells in more than 40 markets.

Which German marque, a GM subsidiary from 1929 until its 2017 sale to PSA, began in 1862 making sewing machines?

Opel traces its roots to Adam Opel's 1862 sewing-machine workshop in Rüsselsheim am Main, and the firm was still advertising its Perfecta sewing machines in 1901. Its 88 years under GM ended with the sale to PSA.

Brothers John and Horace Dodge built chassis for, and held 10% of, which carmaker before their own 1914 car?

Ford's original 1903 Model A used an entire Dodge-built chassis, and the brothers took a 10% stake in return for $10,000 of parts. Their own 1914 Model 30-35 was pitched as a slightly upmarket rival to the Model T.

Which 4x4 brand's name is often traced to Eugene, a magical 'jungle pet' in the Popeye comic strip?

Jeep, by one popular account, was what impressed soldiers nicknamed their new vehicle after Eugene the Jeep, a creature able to move between dimensions and solve impossible problems. Eugene debuted in E. C. Segar's Thimble Theatre strip.

Which Volkswagen Group marque from Mladá Boleslav began in the 1890s as Laurin & Klement, a maker of bicycles?

Škoda's founders turned to making bicycles after bookseller Václav Klement was snubbed by a German bicycle firm that refused to answer a repair letter written in Czech. Volkswagen took full ownership in 2000.

The name FIAT is an acronym whose final word names which city, home of Fiat's five-storey Lingotto factory?

Turin, or Torino, completes 'Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino', founded on 11 July 1899 by a group including Giovanni Agnelli. The Lingotto plant, built from 1915, was then Europe's largest car factory.

Which marque, maker of the rally-winning Stratos and Delta, was founded in 1906 by two Fiat racing drivers?

Lancia left the World Rally Championship in the early 1990s holding ten manufacturers' titles, a record still unmatched three decades later. Vincenzo Lancia and Claudio Fogolin set it up on 27 November 1906, and Fiat took it over in 1969.

Which performance marque wears a scorpion badge because its Italo-Austrian founder Carlo was born under Scorpio?

Abarth & C. was founded in Bologna on 31 March 1949 from the assets of Cisitalia, and Carlo's star sign became the logo. Carlo sold the firm to Fiat on 31 July 1971.

Maserati, founded in Bologna in 1914 by a family of brothers, has been headquartered since 1940 in which city?

Modena became home when the Orsi family, who bought out the remaining brothers in 1937, moved the firm next to their steelworks and spark-plug factory in 1940. The company remains there to this day.

Which Swedish hypercar maker, founded in 1994, builds its cars on a former air-force base at Ängelholm?

Koenigsegg develops its own engines, gearboxes and even software in-house, with about 850 staff on the old Swedish Air Force site. Founder Christian von Koenigsegg set out to build a 'world-class' sports car.

Which Dieppe sports-car marque, dormant after 1995, was relaunched in 2017 with a new mid-engined A110?

Alpine's comeback car revived the name of its classic 1960s A110 and was unveiled at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show. Jean Rédélé had founded the Dieppe firm in 1955.

Which French carmaker formed an alliance with Nissan on 27 March 1999, later expanded to include Mitsubishi?

Renault's Boulogne-Billancourt headquarters and Nissan's in Yokohama anchor a cross-shareholding alliance whose chairman, Carlos Ghosn, was arrested in Tokyo in November 2018. The partners restructured the tie-up in January 2023.

Which British marque, badged with a griffin, moved its works from London to Luton in 1905?

Vauxhall began in 1857 as Alexander Wilson's pump and marine-engine works, and the move to Luton coincidentally returned its griffin emblem to the creature's ancestral home. The modern name arrived in 1907.

MG, whose initials stand for Morris Garages, has been owned since 2007 by which Chinese state-owned carmaker?

SAIC Motor inherited MG by absorbing Nanjing Automobile, which had bought the marque's assets after its British parent collapsed in 2005. The brand keeps a European office in Birmingham.

Which British marque, maker of the XK120 and XK140, traded as SS Cars until a name change in 1945?

Jaguar Cars was the new name adopted in 1945, taken from the firm's pre-war SS Jaguar models. It merged with the British Motor Corporation in 1966 and ended up inside nationalised British Leyland.

Charles Rolls and Henry Royce began their car partnership in 1904 in which city, where Royce already built cranes?

Manchester was where Rolls-Royce Limited was established in 1904, building on the reputation of Royce's cranes. The first assembled car was finished by 1 April 1904 and driven by Royce to his home in Knutsford and back.

Which small Dutch sports-car maker bought Saab Automobile from General Motors in 2010, a year before Saab's bankruptcy?

Spyker Cars N.V. could not save Saab: GM blocked every rescue involving a Chinese partner, and the Trollhättan firm filed for bankruptcy on 19 December 2011. Chinese-backed NEVS later bought the remains.

Which electric brand, spun out of Volvo in 2017, began as a Swedish touring-car racing team founded in 1996?

Polestar started life as Flash Engineering in the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship, was renamed in 2005 and became Volvo's tuning arm before Volvo bought the brand outright in July 2015. It is based at Torslanda near Gothenburg.

Which name, first borne by a 1909 Zeppelin engine maker, did Mercedes-Benz revive in 2002 as an ultra-luxury marque?

Maybach sold just 157 cars worldwide in 2010 against 2,711 similarly priced Rolls-Royces, and the standalone brand was laid to rest before returning as a Mercedes sub-brand in 2015. Wilhelm and Karl Maybach had founded the original firm.

Lada's home city on the Volga was renamed in 1964 after Palmiro Togliatti, a communist leader from which country?

Italy's longest-serving Communist Party secretary got the honour because he had helped set up the Fiat-backed venture that built the plant, and he died in Yalta that August. The city is now spelled Tolyatti.

Which Lotus founder, whose engineering creed was 'adding lightness', died of a heart attack in 1982, aged 54?

Colin Chapman died on the very day Team Lotus tested the first active-suspension Formula One car, 16 December 1982. 'Adding lightness makes you faster everywhere' was his maxim.

Which Malvern firm built only three-wheelers until its first four-wheeled car in 1936, then kept the trikes until 1952?

Morgan's three-wheeler output was nearing 1,000 cars by the First World War, and the family firm still builds cars on Pickersleigh Road in Malvern. Racing and touring versions of the trike resumed after 1918.

Which country, birthplace of founder Horacio Pagani, gave the Pagani Zonda its name via a hot wind off the Andes?

Argentina's zonda wind replaced the planned name 'Fangio F1' after the five-time champion, Horacio's friend, died in 1995. Pagani's factory is at San Cesario sul Panaro in Emilia-Romagna.

MG's British parent entered administration in April 2005, ending volume car production at which Birmingham plant?

Longbridge's key assets went to Nanjing Automobile, which restarted MG sports-car production in 2007. The group itself was only formally dissolved on 28 May 2023, more than 18 years after the collapse.

Which luxury marque did Hyundai launch as a standalone brand in November 2015, taking its name from a flagship sedan?

Genesis had already spent seven successful years as a Hyundai model name, ranking among the top three sellers in its segment, when the spin-off was announced. The idea dated back to plans for the sedan in 2004.

Which badge, dropped by Nissan in 1986, was revived in 2013 as a budget brand for markets such as India and Indonesia?

Datsun's second life was short: the revived brand sold in India from 2014 to 2022. The original badge had been phased out in March 1986 as the Nissan name took over worldwide.

Which luxury marque did Nissan launch in North America on 8 November 1989, the same year Toyota's Lexus arrived?

Infiniti, Lexus and Acura all emerged as Japan's voluntary export restraints made it more profitable to ship fewer, pricier cars to the United States. Its first flagship was the Q45.

Mitsubishi's car business descends from a group that Iwasaki Yatarō founded in 1870 as what kind of company?

A shipping firm called Tsukumo Shokai was the seed, and it soon added coal mining to fuel its ships, a shipyard to repair them and marine insurance to cover them. The name became Mitsubishi Shokai in 1873.

Which Japanese firm, a Hamamatsu loom maker from 1909, partnered with India's state-owned Maruti in 1982?

Suzuki Loom Works boomed by supplying Japan's giant silk industry, and Michio Suzuki's firm initially took 26% of Maruti before buying more shares in 2003. It was the first largely foreign-owned car company in India.

Daihatsu's name joins the first kanji of 'engine manufacture' with the first kanji of which city, its home since 1907?

Osaka's 大 plus 'hatsu' from hatsudōki seizō gives Daihatsu, one of Japan's oldest surviving engine makers, founded as Hatsudoki Seizo in 1907. Toyota has owned it outright since August 2016.

Which Shenzhen carmaker ended Volkswagen's long run as China's best-selling car brand in 2023?

BYD Auto was only established in January 2003, as an offshoot of a battery company that had taken over Xi'an Qinchuan Automobile. Its European EV sales overtook Tesla's in April 2025.

Which Malaysian national carmaker, launched in 1983 under Mahathir Mohamad, owned Lotus from 1996 to 2017?

Proton paid £51 million for 80% of Lotus in October 1996 and sold control of both firms to Geely in 2017, when the Chinese group took 49.9% of Proton and 51% of Lotus. Perodua has been its domestic rival since 1993.