History of Famous Car Brands

Famous car brands for instance Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Toyota and Porsche are leading automobile industry these days. They jog your memory about the successes of the past and renowned automobile companies that are found at present.

Usually each of the brand-name of automobile companies (such as mentioned above) comes up with its owner or holder’s name. And prominence normally speaks about the names they ended up with.

In 1903 David Buick established Buick Motor Car Co who invented the overhead valve engine before. In 1904 William C. Durant (who would eventually established GM) took over the company at the time when it experienced fiscal trouble. Though Buick kept join the company but left it in 1908. Buick died in 1929 and never put on profit from the company.

Durant did not change the name of the car and kept it for one of his company as well although he concerned that people might possibly articulate its company name as ‘Boo-ick’ as said by one author. Though; the owner of General Motors never appreciated the idea of Durant cars.

Hupmobile:

In another example, in 1908 Robert Hupp initiated the Hupmobile, which was a two-seat runabout. But in 1911, Robert Hupp sold his manufactured vehicles. In the same year, he again established a company named Hupp Coro, for this name the investors of his first company took him to the court and they won this case so consequently he left this name. Hence his second company dropped its fame, on the other hand Huppmobile carried on until 1940s.

Similar story was with Swiss-born Louis Chevrolet. In 1911, Durant came to a new car building project with the intent to work on his fame as a brave and bold race driver.

In 1913, Chevrolet left the company because he was feeling himself incapable to make adjustment racing to building vehicles. However its name remained attaché with the new Chevrolet vehicles and Durant purportedly liked its musical cadence.

Chrysler:

In the similar way, Walter P. Chrysler acquired the naming rights to the Maxwell Motor Corporation in 1925 along with another manufacturer and they both obtained shares in the company within two years time period.

Ford:

There was a quite different situation with Henry Ford. He was dishonored on being passed over from the company which was employing his own name. Ford worked for the company as an inventor but was taken out in 1902.

And the reason behind this was described in Encyclopedia of American Business and Biography that Henry Ford focused on building racing cars all the time rather than passenger cars.

When Ford departed the company was then renamed Cadillac later than Antoine Laumet de la Mothe Cadillac, who was a French nobleman who established Detroit in 1703, his heraldry happened to be the model’s badge and the company developed into a part of General Motors in 1909.

Following his dismissal, Ford worked to come across investors to initiate his own company, Ford Motor Co, in 1903. Then he brought in his company’s first new vehicle named Model A and proceeded to produce other low cost vehicles as well. One of the grand achievements of his company was Model T, which was introduced in 1908. Initially, it was sold at about $850 and fell gradually after Ford introduced more economic vehicles. The novel firm surprisingly got colossal fame and became successful.

In 1920s, Ford got the opportunity to acquire Lincoln Motor Co and was owned by Henry Leland, one of the most poplar people and who dismissed him in 1902. After that he employed the previous aircraft company to produce his own line of luxury cars with Lincoln name.

General Motors:

In 1908 Durant added in his company under the name International Motors Co., in New Jersey. Mean while his legal representative recommended him that it would be better to move up capital under a new name. Then they decided to use “’United Motors Company” but acknowledged that United Motor Car Company already there in that state. So finally they got General Motors Company name for their company as it was not used before.

Recently several vehicle manufacturing companies started to put French word, Auto-mobile in their company’s name. During mid 1890s, inventor Ransom E. Olds filed a copyright for an “auto-mobile” for instance Bugmobile, Locomobile, Hupmobile, and obviously, the Oldsmobile,

Jeep:

It can be tricky to trace the origins of some names. For example, the first use of ‘Jeep’ is covered in fog. The author of the book (named ‘Jeep’) Jim Allen finishes off that it is based on World War II jargon for ‘a new unproven vehicle’. It was not used until 1950s, when Toledo-based Willys-Overland, Inc. (one of the manufacturers of early four wheel drive vehicle) marked it.

Toyota:

Although not all names were used from auto industry such as Toyota name which came from Toyoda loom works in Kariya, Japan. After that they adopted this name in vehicle productions and replaced’d’ to‘t’ to make it simpler and easy to understand according to Japanese script.

There is miniature uncertainty about other brand names. For instance, Pontiac was a subsidiary of the Pontiac Buggy Co., who was a horseless carriage manufacturer named after a renowned Indian chief. Mechanic Soichiro Honda began introducing power-driven bicycles later than the destruction of Second World War and then proceeded to produce cars as well.

Volkswagen:

In the similar way, response to Adolf Hitler’s needs a car for the common folk, resulted the name Volkswagen, which means car in German obviously hitting the prototype’s name, “Strength through Joy”.

BMW:

In 1917, the Rapp Engine Works developed into Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH, or Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) manufacturing firm expanded into motorcycle engines, with a logo of propeller against a blue sky as said by some authorities. The first BMW cars were introduced about 11 years afterward.

Among all brand names, Jaguar name is considered one of the best sports car names. In 1935, it pounded a lengthy list of monotonous animal names brought together by a British ad agency. In 1939, Ford used Mercury ‘the fleet-footed messenger of the gods’. For instance as Lincoln was used three years former which means ‘the god of the wind’

And there are some brand names that came from acronyms. For instance, Fiat stands for Fabbrica Italiani Automobili Torino, and similarly Saab stands for Svenska Aeroplanaktiebolaget.

In 1958, Ford worked well with an acronym. The Edsel was visualized as a new Ford Motor Co. brand, with its own badge, division and models. The purpose was to employ GM’s Oldsmobile. After Edsel Ford, Ford named the new vehicle brand. He worked well for the company and in 1943 he became the president of this company after his father’s death.

The use of brand name Edsel led the Ford’s share down up to 10 points on the day it was declared. And it was considered that the Edsel name alone would cost the company 200,000 units in sales for the new vehicle. However; its name was not the only problem. Majority of its vehicle models were similar to Ford and Mercury models. On the other hand, Edsel was added to the vocabulary as an idea that planned to be unsuccessful.