somewhat interesting article; which carmaker owns whom....

[ryan roopnarine]

i know its for canadians, its still somewhat interesting

http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/pw/brands.htm

[632 Regal]

kindof a clusterfÜck if you ask me.

[AllanS]

BMW was almost bought by Mercedes back in the day... I guess smaller marques like Aston Martin, Lamborghini, Saab, Rover, etc. just can't survive in this modern environment. I'm surprised that Porsche is still around and wholly owned, but I doubt that this will remain this way much longer. They're getting off track with all this SUV and sedan madness, and I think it'll be the death of them, as an independant company at least.

[ryan roopnarine]

i was surprised to read that bmw sold the r rovers to ford in 2k. i thought that the rumor goin' around was that ford was supposed to buy bmw later that year but couldn't because of all the money they had to spend to fix the firestone tire mess in late 00.

[632 Regal]

even if it was built prior.

[AllanS]

The Quandt family still has controlling interest in BMW, and I doubt they would let it go unless they absolutely had to. Especially to Ford! Blegh...!

Oh, and that Firestone mess was a bunch of ******** you know- there was nothing wrong with those tires. The failure ratings were well within industry standard. If I remember correctly, the issue was that Ford was using tire pressures way too low to make up for crappy handling issues that the Explorer had. And Ford has the balls to try and blame Firestone!

And, yeah- I wouldn't buy a Ford either, including a jag or an Aston Martin. Not that I have a chance to buy an Aston Martin, but if I did, I'd be buying a TVR or a Noble, both companies which are still independently owned. Even Lotus has a parent company, and a Malaysian one at that.

[Russell]

It reveals an interesting history of BMW and why the company is sucessfull.

i know its for canadians, its still somewhat interesting

http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/pw/brands.htm