Which Automakers Own What Brands?
While it can be easy to think of every automotive brand as a separate entity, the reality is that many of the world’s largest automakers are deeply connected through a web of ownership. The past few decades have seen significant shifts in the automotive industry due to a storm of mergers, partnerships, bankruptcies, and buyouts that have left us with the current market-leading conglomerates like Volkswagen Group and Stellantis.
This family tree may seem convoluted at first, but it’s fairly simple to connect the dots between most of the major brands. Understanding the connections between these various automakers is not only great for some bar trivia, but it can also help you make more informed buying and repair decisions.
Overview of the Major Automotive Groups
Although we may feel spoiled for choice between brands when looking at new cars for purchase, most vehicles from major brands truly come from only a handful of massive automotive conglomerates that often share technology, platforms, components, and styling across multiple subsidiary brands or partners.
This is the reason that you may have noticed that two different vehicles from separate brands may look similar, share an engine, or have the same interior switches and infotainment setup. Buying, partnering, or merging with brands in adjacent segments allows automakers to keep production and development costs down through shared research, engineering, and manufacturing.
In this article, we’ll only be focusing on brands and conglomerates that sell vehicles in the North American market to keep it concise and relevant to our local readers.
Notable Automotive Groups
Volkswagen Group (VAG)
North American Brands: Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Bentley
As the second-largest automotive conglomerate in the world by sales, Volkswagen Group has taken control of a significant portion of the market through its various subsidiary brands that cover multiple price ranges and market segments.
Volkswagen is VAG’s most mass-market brand, offering practical and reliable vehicles that fall into similar price ranges to competitors like Honda, Toyota, and Ford. Offering German engineering at commuter-car pricing, Volkswagen Group has made Volkswagen a very attractive brand for those looking for a dependable daily driver.
Sitting above VW in VAG’s brand lineup are their five premium, luxury, and performance brands: Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, and Buggati.
Audi shares a significant amount of platforms and drivetrains with its lower-priced counterpart, but their vehicles include more luxurious and technologically advanced interiors, superior performance and handling, and refined styling meant to fit in with other premium vehicle brands like BMW, Lexus, and Acura.
Porsche is well known for their flagship 911 sports car, as well as other quality luxury vehicles like the Macan, Panamera, and Cayenne. If you know anything about the history of either Porsche or VW, you know that their stories are quite intertwined. Volkswagen purchased a majority stake in Porsche in 1955, and quickly made it their most popular performance marquee.
In 1998, VAG would acquire two legendary and historic brands that were sitting on the brink of failure, Lamborghini and Bentley. Both brands act as Volkswagen’s top-of-market subsidiaries, with Lamborghini offering aggressive styling and exotic engines while Bentley competes with the likes of Rolls-Royce in delivering ultra-luxurious sedans, SUVs, and grand touring coupes.
And of course, who could forget the pinnacle of VW’s subsidiaries, Bugatti? Also purchased in 1998, Bugatti would become Volkswagen’s “halo brand”, releasing extremely limited and expensive vehicles to draw attention and interest to the engineering and performance prowess of Volkswagen Group as a whole.
Toyota Group
North American Brands: Toyota, Lexus, Subaru (stake ownership)
Despite owning only three brands that operate in North America, Toyota sits at the top as the world’s largest automaker by sales.
The Toyota brand itself makes up a massive portion of Toyota Group’s sales volume, known for reliable commuter vehicles and practical SUVs. With instantly recognizable names like the Camry, Tacoma, and Prius in their lineup, Toyota vehicles are some of the most commonly purchased in the entire world.
Toyota introduced the world to its luxury subsidiary in 1989, Lexus. By combining Toyota’s legendary dependability with premium interior materials and smooth ride quality, Toyota Group would quickly give the Germans a run for their money in the premium/luxury vehicle segment. Today, Lexus still shares a significant amount of their platforms and drivetrains with Toyota vehicles. Toyota Group’s “New Global Architecture” platform acts as the underpinning for many of both brand’s most popular vehicles.
Toyota only retains partial ownership of Subaru, sitting at 20%, however, they are still the largest individual shareholder of the brand and exercise some amount of control. This partnership has resulted in joint research and development projects, most notably on the GR86/BRZ, which was a small two-door sports coupe developed together and sold by both brands under different nameplates.
General Motors
North American Brands: Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, Buick
As one of the “Big Three” manufacturers based in the United States, General Motors has expanded its footprint on the automotive market through multiple brands targeting various segments of the industry, from large workhorse trucks to luxurious executive sedans. Unlike many of the other conglomerates on this list, every brand under the General Motors umbrella have been a part of GM since
Chevrolet is possibly GM’s most recognizable marquee, known for its diverse offering of dependable vehicles at affordable prices. With a lineup ranging from efficient hybrids to legendary performance cars like the Corvette and Camaro, Chevy has long been a defining brand of U.S. automotive culture.
GMC targets a similar price range of the market as Chevrolet but doubles down on the large and spacious SUVs/pickups that have become so popular in North America. GMC offers a wide variety of dependable and durable family SUVs and workhorse trucks, sharing many of their vehicle’s platforms with other GM brands including Chevy and Cadillac.
Buick bridges the gap between cheaper Chevrolet products and its higher-market Cadillac vehicles, offering a range consisting of crossovers and SUVs.
Cadillac is GM’s top-of-the-line offering, with its lineup including luxurious SUVs and executive sedans along with its “V” performance division.
GM’s brands share a significant amount of parts and platforms between them, allowing for reduced
Stellantis (Formerly FCA)
North American Brands: Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Ram, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Maserati
Following a merger of the Italian-American conglomerate Fiat Chrysler Automobiles with the French-based PSA Group, the newly formed Stellantis immediately had a massive footprint on the international automotive market. With North American-offered brands including popular names like Jeep, Dodge, and Fiat, Stellantis manages to compete in various segments and price brackets.
Chrysler today offers far fewer models than it used to, with only two versions of the Pacifica and the Voyager still being produced by the brand.
Jeep is well known for their heritage and ever-present Wrangler model, however the brand still offers a wide range of SUVs and even a pickup for customers to choose from. From an affordable family SUV in the Compass to the luxury flagship Grand Wagonner, Jeep maintains a model in the lineup for most price ranges and needs.
Dodge is moving away from the V8 that defined its brand for so long, but has transitioned to a focus on EVs, SUVs, and an inline-6 version of the popular Charger nameplate. Its truck-only RAM counterpart is still one of the highest-selling producers of pickup trucks in North America.
Similar to Chysler, Fiat’s lineup has shrunk considerably, only offering the 500e model in North America as of 2025.
Alfa Romeo and Maserati sit at the top of Stellantis’ brand hierarchy, both producing high-performance luxury sedans and SUVs. Alfa’s recent return to North America has brought us acclaimed vehicles like their Giulia Quadrifoglio performance sedan. Maserati’s other notable models include the Gran Turismo performance coupes and their MC20 supercar.
BMW Group
North American Brands: BMW, Mini, Rolls-Royce.
Today, the German-giant BMW Group maintains three brands under their umbrella.
Mini comes in as the most affordable of the trio, offering a few versions of the Cooper and their larger four-door option, the Countryman. Mini models all use four-cylinder BMW engines, highlighting the importance of the connections between these seemingly unrelated brands.
BMW itself is one of the most popular luxury vehicle producers and boasts a large lineup full of models and trims for each price point above its entry-level 2-Series and 3-Series offerings. The “M” division of BMW has become renowned for its performance iterations based on a variety of BMW platforms.
Purchased in 1998, Rolls-Royce become the crown of BMW Group and has further built the brand through selling ultra-luxurious touring cars, sedans, and SUVs competing with the likes of Bentley and Maybach.
Ford Motor Company
North American Brands: Ford, Lincoln
Though Ford’s name is possibly the largest out of the U.S. manufacturers, their larger conglomerate only retains two brands. Despite previously controlling notable brands like Aston Martin, Volvo, and Jaguar to name a few, Ford Motor Company has consolidated down to just Lincoln and Ford after profit concerns during their luxury takeover of the late 20th century.
As one of the best selling brands in Canada, Ford has long been known for their dependable trucks and family cars. Vehicles like the F150 continue to sit near the top of sales charts in North America.
Ford’s premium counterpart, Lincoln, uses many of the engines and platforms underpinning Ford-branded vehicles while adding high-market materials, interior technology, increased power, and revised styling to fit in with their luxury competitors, particularly other premium brands like Acura and Lexus.
Other Notable Brands
Some other significant players in the automotive industry also hold another brand or two under their umbrella, usually a luxury brand they can use to sell upscale versions of their most popular platforms. These include Honda with Acura, Nissan with Infiniti, and Hyundai with Genesis (Hyundai Motor Group also owns the other major South Korean brand, Kia). Mercedes-Benz owns the Smart brand, but recently pulled the quirky cars from the North American market in 2020.
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