90 Fun Facts About Car Brands

Which carmaker's name blazed in lights on the Eiffel Tower from 1925 to 1934?

Citroën lit the tower with 250,000 bulbs, yet in late 1934 the firm went bankrupt and fell into the hands of Michelin, one of its biggest creditors.

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

Iron's alchemical sign became the badge, while the Volvo name had first been registered by bearing maker SKF for a line of ball bearings that never reached the market.

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

Swatch was out of the venture within weeks of the car's October 1998 launch, when Daimler-Benz took full ownership of the maker.

Which luxury marque did Henry Leland found before he started Lincoln?

Cadillac was bought by General Motors in 1909, but Leland quit GM in 1917 in a dispute with William Durant over war work, and started Lincoln to build Liberty aircraft engines.

Which American marque was founded in 1899 by a Scottish-born inventor of a way to enamel bathtubs?

Buick's founder sold his plumbing business to work on engines full-time, and his new company first aimed to sell engines for farm use before he turned to building a car.

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

Modernity is the meaning of Hyundai, whose cheap Pony hatchback reached Canada as a 1984 model and sold about 25,000 cars against a planned 5,000.

Which GM brand was named for an Odawa chief who led a 1763 uprising near Detroit?

Pontiac began in 1926 as a cheaper companion to GM's Oakland line, but it soon outsold Oakland, and in 1931 GM dropped the Oakland name in favour of Pontiac.

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

Satellite is the astronomical sense of Trabant, a name inspired by Sputnik, and East Germans waited so many years for one that a used Trabant cost more than a new one.

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

Romania's state carmaker began by building French designs under licence, and in 1999 the same French firm that had licensed them bought control of the company.

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

After Adam Opel died in 1895, his sons took up car making with Friedrich Lutzmann's designs, and the first Opel car appeared in 1899.

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

Ford stopped paying special dividends to fund expansion, so the Dodge brothers sued, and in 1919 Michigan's Supreme Court made the company pay out $19 million.

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

Jeep may also echo GP, for 'general purpose', but the name was surely influenced by Eugene, a creature whose whole vocabulary was the word 'jeep'.

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

Škoda's story began when Václav Klement got a rude reply to his complaint about a faulty bicycle, so he began repairing bikes himself with mechanic Václav Laurin.

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

Turin is the T in FIAT, and at Lingotto cars were built on lines rising floor by floor until finished cars drove onto a test track on the roof.

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

Lancia was founded by Vincenzo Lancia, Fiat's fastest driver of the day, yet after years of decline the loss-making firm was bought by Fiat itself in 1969.

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

Abarth's founder began as a motorcycle racer, and in 1934 his sidecar outfit beat the Orient Express on the run from Vienna to Ostend.

Maserati, founded in Bologna in 1914 by brothers, moved on the eve of World War II to which city?

Modena became Maserati's home, but its trident badge came from Bologna, where Mario Maserati copied it from the statue of Neptune in Piazza Maggiore.

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

Koenigsegg moved into the hangar after a 2003 fire destroyed its first factory, and cars built there wear the ghost emblem of the fighter squadron once based in it.

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

Alpine's revival began as a joint venture with Caterham, but Caterham sold its stake back in 2014 and the new A110 went ahead without it.

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

Renault bought into loss-making Nissan, but Nissan recovered so fast that in 2001 it agreed to buy 15% of Renault.

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

Vauxhall's griffin is said to come from the arms of Falkes de Breauté, a medieval mercenary who held the manor of Luton and whose London hall gave the district its name.

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

SAIC lost the 2005 bidding war for MG to rival Nanjing Automobile, then got the marque anyway by taking over Nanjing at the end of 2007.

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

Jaguar had been a model name on the firm's cars since 1935, and in 1945 it became the company name because the initials SS had gained unfavourable wartime connotations.

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

Manchester was where Rolls met Royce in May 1904, and Rolls, a London car dealer, agreed to sell all the cars Royce could build as Rolls-Royces; the company itself formed in 1906.

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

Spyker's rescue failed when GM, whose technology Saab's cars used, blocked a sale to Chinese buyers, so the funding collapsed and Saab filed for bankruptcy in December 2011.

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

Polestar the brand went to Volvo in 2015, but the racing team it grew from stayed with its owner and was renamed Cyan Racing.

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

Maybach's interwar cars ranked with Mercedes in Germany's luxury class, but in the 1960s the firm came under Daimler-Benz, the owner that later revived the name.

Lada's Volga home city was renamed in 1964 after which Italian Communist leader?

Palmiro Togliatti died in Yalta, in the Soviet Union, in 1964, and two years later Fiat signed the Soviet deal to build Lada's plant in the city named after him.

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

Colin Chapman's early racing specials ran reworked engines that beat the opposition so thoroughly that the rules were changed to close the loophole he had exploited.

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

Morgan's early cars had three wheels because three-wheelers counted as motorcycles, so they avoided the British tax on cars.

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

Argentina's Horacio Pagani got his first job at Lamborghini sweeping floors, but worked his way up before leaving to build his own cars.

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

Longbridge came to a standstill after rescue talks collapsed, and some 6,000 workers there lost their jobs.

Which luxury marque did Hyundai launch as a standalone brand in November 2015, named after one of its sedans?

Genesis took over Hyundai's luxury sedans, so the Genesis sedan was renamed the G80 and the pricier Equus became the G90.

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

Datsun's comeback flopped: sales of its cheap small cars never took off, and in April 2022 Nissan ended Datsun production at its last remaining plant, in India.

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

Infiniti's teaser ads showed ocean waves and flying geese rather than the car itself, and its sales never matched those of Lexus.

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

A shipping firm, Tsukumo Shokai, was the seed, and when Mitsubishi carried Japan's troops to Taiwan in 1874, the government contract gave the young company its financial footing.

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

Suzuki took only 26% of Maruti at first, but it raised its stake over the years and gained majority control in May 2002.

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

Osaka's 大 joined 発 from 'hatsudoki' in the engine maker's nickname, and in 1951 Daihatsu became the company's official name.

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

BYD was mainly a phone-battery maker when it bought a small carmaker in 2003 to build electric cars, yet it started out selling petrol cars and only stopped making them in 2022.

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

Proton gave up Lotus in 2017, when Geely bought 51% of it along with 49.9% of Proton, and Proton soon began selling its own version of Geely's Boyue SUV.

Which Italian supercar maker, founded in 1963 by a tractor manufacturer, names its models after famous fighting bulls?

Lamborghini owes its bull theme to a 1962 trip, when founder Ferruccio visited the Seville ranch of Don Eduardo Miura, a breeder of Spanish fighting bulls. The Miura supercar was named for the family.

Which German carmaker renamed its 901 sports car after Peugeot claimed rights to three-digit names with a middle zero?

Porsche had already built 82 cars badged 901 when the French firm objected, so it swapped the zero for a one and created the 911.

Which stainless-steel car, built near Belfast in the early 1980s, was the time machine in Back to the Future?

DeLorean production lasted barely two years: the company filed for bankruptcy in October 1982, days after founder John DeLorean was arrested on drug-trafficking charges.

Which American car, unveiled at the 1964 New York World's Fair, did Steve McQueen drive in the film Bullitt?

Mustang sales passed 400,000 in the first year, more than four times the forecast, and the one-millionth car was sold within two years of launch.

Which electric carmaker, incorporated in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, first sold a Lotus-based roadster?

Tesla gained Elon Musk only in February 2004, as lead investor and chairman. A 2009 lawsuit settlement lets five people call themselves co-founders.

The name Volvo, first registered in 1911 for a line of ball bearings, means what in Latin?

"I roll" was meant for bearings made by SKF, which dropped the idea and used its own initials. The name was revived when SKF backed a Swedish car project in the 1920s.

Which Japanese brand, known for boxer engines and all-wheel drive, takes its name from the Pleiades star cluster?

Subaru is the Japanese name for the cluster, also called the Seven Sisters. Its six-star badge also alludes to the companies that merged to form the parent firm, Fuji Heavy Industries.

Which marque's name is a Latin translation of its founder's surname, Horch, the German word for 'listen'?

Audi was August Horch's way around a lawsuit: barred from using his own surname at his second car company, he took the Latin version suggested by a friend's son.

Which British car, designed by Alec Issigonis after the Suez fuel shortage, starred in the 1969 film The Italian Job?

Mini designers turned the engine sideways and drove the front wheels, leaving 80% of the floorpan for passengers and luggage. A generation of small cars copied the layout.

Which Toyota, launched in 1966, became history's best-selling car nameplate and passed 50 million sales in 2021?

Corolla is Latin for "small crown", part of a Toyota tradition of naming sedans after its Crown saloon. Corona, another of them, is simply Latin for crown.

Which Italian marque, based in Maranello, is the only team to have raced in every Formula One season since 1950?

Ferrari moved to Maranello in 1943 and was bombed there in 1944 and again in 1945. The racing team and the road-car factory still share the town.

The initials of BMW, a firm whose first products were aircraft engines, stand for what in English?

Bavarian Motor Works turned to cars only in 1928, when it bought a factory building Britain's tiny Austin 7 under licence. The first BMW car was that same design with a new badge.

Which British marque, driven by James Bond in the film Goldfinger, takes half its name from a Buckinghamshire hill?

Aston Martin joins the surname of co-founder Lionel Martin to Aston Hill, the climb near Aston Clinton where he raced his early specials.

Which Toyota, launched in Japan in 1997, was the world's first mass-produced hybrid car?

Prius is a Latin word meaning "first" or "to go before", a fitting badge for a model Toyota developed as its car for the 21st century.

Which car, nicknamed the Tin Lizzie, sold more than 15 million between 1908 and 1927?

Model T buyers could not have black at first: from 1908 to 1913 it came only in gray, green, blue and red. The famous all-black policy arrived in 1914.

Which rear-engined car, star of Disney's Herbie films, was built until 2003 at a factory in Puebla, Mexico?

Beetle production ran for 65 years and 21.5 million cars, the longest run and the biggest total of any car built on a single platform.

Which Japanese maker of the Civic and Accord has also been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959?

Honda started in 1946 with twelve men in a shack, fitting war-surplus generator engines to bicycles.

Which American brand, co-founded in 1911 by a Swiss-born racing driver, builds the Silverado pickup and the Suburban?

Chevrolet lost its namesake early: Louis quarrelled with partner William Durant over the car's design and sold him his share. Durant then used the firm to retake control of General Motors.

Which Dodge muscle car, a black 1970 model, does Dominic Toretto drive in The Fast and the Furious films?

Charger fans already knew it from another famous chase: a black 1968 model duels with Steve McQueen's car through the streets of San Francisco in Bullitt.

Which American sports car debuted in 1953 with a fiberglass body and moved its engine behind the driver in 2020?

Corvette was named in 1953 after a small, manoeuvrable warship, at the suggestion of Myron Scott from the maker's public relations department.

Which British marque, launched at the 1948 Amsterdam Motor Show, builds the Defender and the Discovery?

Land Rover bodies were made of aluminium because steel was rationed after the war, and the earliest came only in light green, the colour of surplus aircraft cockpit paint.

Which brand began in 1992 as a civilian version of a US Army truck, after lobbying by Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Hummer owes its showroom life to Schwarzenegger, who saw an Army convoy while filming Kindergarten Cop in Oregon and went on to buy the first two civilian trucks sold.

Which British luxury marque, now based in Crewe, won the Le Mans 24 Hours four years running from 1927 to 1930?

Bentley could not live on racing glory: by 1931 it was in receivership, and rival Rolls-Royce bought it through a front company that hid the buyer's identity.

Which Hiroshima carmaker builds the MX-5 Miata and won Le Mans in 1991 with a rotary-engined car?

Mazda began in 1920 as Toyo Cork Kogyo, a cork-making factory, and took Mazda as its company name only in 1984, though its vehicles had carried the badge from the start.

Which Volkswagen hatchback, launched in 1974, was sold in the United States and Canada as the Rabbit?

Golf beat Blizzard and Caribe to become the name, and nobody agrees why: its origin is variously put down to the sport, the Gulf Stream or a horse.

Which Woking supercar maker carries the name of a New Zealand racing driver killed while testing at Goodwood in 1970?

McLaren outlived its founder Bruce: four years after his fatal crash, the racing team he started in 1963 won its first Formula One constructors' championship.

Which Milan marque, whose first name began as an acronym, built the Spider that Dustin Hoffman drives in The Graduate?

Alfa Romeo joins A.L.F.A., short for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili, to the surname of Nicola Romeo, the Neapolitan engineer who took control in 1915.

Which carmaking group was created in January 2021 by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and France's PSA?

Stellantis comes from the Latin verb stello, "to brighten with stars". The group put its headquarters in the Netherlands, home to none of its Italian, American or French marques.

Which Chinese group bought Volvo Cars in 2010 and took a majority stake in Lotus in 2017?

Geely began in 1986 making refrigerator parts, moved on to motorcycles in 1994 and built its first cars only in 1997.

Which Indian carmaker unveiled the Nano in 2008 as the world's lowest-priced production car, at 100,000 rupees?

Tata aimed the Nano at families riding motorcycles and scooters, and its unveiling alone cut sales of the rival Maruti 800 by 20%.

Which Australian marque began as an Adelaide saddlery in 1856 and was retired by General Motors at the end of 2020?

Holden lasted 164 years in all, though for its final three years it only imported cars: the last Australian-built Commodore left the line in October 2017.

Which Spanish brand, founded in 1950 with state backing, names models such as the Ibiza and León after places in Spain?

SEAT began as a joint venture between the state holding company INI, Spanish banks and Fiat, and its first car left the Barcelona line in November 1953.

Which American brand, shut down by General Motors in 2004 as the nation's oldest marque, built the Curved Dash?

Oldsmobile built that little runabout on a progressive assembly line, making it the first mass-produced car, a breakthrough often credited to a later rival.

Which American brand, launched for the 1958 model year and dropped in 1959, became a byword for commercial failure?

Edsel cost its parent company more than $250 million and was quietly discontinued in November 1959. The brand carried the first name of the company founder's son.

Which marque, launched in North America in March 1986 with the Legend, was the first Japanese luxury car brand?

Acura did so well with the Legend that Toyota and Nissan answered with luxury marques of their own before the decade was out.

Which Toyota pickup did Top Gear leave in the sea, set on fire and park on a building during its demolition?

Hilux abuse fell on a 1988 diesel with 190,000 miles on the clock, and the battered truck later went on display at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu.

Which Lotus sports car turns into a submarine after a road chase in the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me?

Esprit-shaped and nicknamed Wet Nellie, the film's submarine really worked, though its crew needed scuba gear because the cabin flooded. Elon Musk later bought it.

Which German city was founded in 1938 to house workers at the Volkswagen factory, which is still the company's home?

Wolfsburg took that name only in May 1945, under American occupation, from the castle that stands there. Until then it was officially the City of the KdF Car.

Which marque, founded at Molsheim in 1909 by an Italian-born designer, built the 16-cylinder Veyron and Chiron?

Bugatti was born German and became French: Molsheim, in Alsace, was part of the German Empire when Milan-born Ettore set up there, and passed to France in 1919.

Which executive rescued Chrysler in the 1980s with federal loan guarantees, the K-car and the first minivans?

Lee Iacocca turned the company around so quickly that it repaid its government-backed loans seven years earlier than expected.

Which carmaker, formed in 1954 by the merger of Nash and Hudson, built the Gremlin and the Pacer?

American Motors was born from what was then the largest corporate merger in US history, and it later pitched the Gremlin as the first American subcompact.

Which short-lived American make's 1948 sedan had a third, directional headlamp and a production run of only 51 cars?

Tucker had to make a cover for the centre lamp, because 17 states then banned cars with more than two headlights.

Which rear-engined American compact did Ralph Nader attack in the opening chapter of his 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed?

Corvair handling was later cleared: a 1972 federal safety study found the early cars no more likely to go out of control than rival compacts of the day.

Which Kalamazoo, Michigan company built the boxy cab that became the classic American taxi, ending production in 1982?

Checker stopped only because its body-stamping dies were wearing out. The basic design had run with minor styling changes since 1956.

Which Indianapolis marque built the Model J, a Depression-era status symbol driven by Clark Gable and Gary Cooper?

Duesenberg made two modified SSJ versions for the actors in 1935. Cooper's sold for $22 million in 2018, then a record for an American car at auction.

Which Blackpool sports-car maker built the Griffith, Chimaera, Cerbera and Tuscan?

TVR is Trevor with three letters dropped: founder Trevor Wilkinson first called his 1946 workshop Trevcar Motors, then shortened the name.

Which British marque, begun by a German bicycle importer in the 1880s, built the Spitfire, Stag and TR6 sports cars?

Triumph ended as a badge on someone else's car: its last model, the 1981 Acclaim, was a Japanese design built under licence, and the name vanished in 1984.

Which Nissan performance car did the Australian magazine Wheels nickname Godzilla in 1989?

Skyline GT-R got the name as a play on its monster track performance and its country of origin, and Wheels reused the label for each later generation.

Which Croatian maker of electric hypercars, founded near Zagreb in 2009, builds the Nevera?

Rimac grew out of a hobby project in founder Mate's garage in 2007, when he fitted an electric powertrain to his own BMW 3 Series.

Which Serbian-built hatchback, sold in America in the 1980s from $3,990, did Car Talk vote worst car of the millennium?

Yugo was no flop at first: importer Malcolm Bricklin sold 141,651 of them in America, peaking at 48,812 in 1987 before sales collapsed to 1,412 in 1992.