Rolls-Royce

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#1
I always knew that Maybach is Mercedes but I never knew that Rolls-Royce is BMW. I noticed it when browsing BMW's site the other day. Just to make sure, Bentley isnt owned by anyone right?

For those of you who dont know about Maybach, it is Mercedes $400,000 car. Attached is a pic.
 

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#2
I saw a History channel program on the history of Rolls-Royce and BMW only used to make engines for the cars. Whent eh company was selling, VW overbid BMW and was about to win. BMW said that they will not provide the enignes if VW wins. After all of that VW owned Rolls-Royce until this or previous year and now Rolls-Royce is BMW. VW got to keep Bentley though. If I remember correctly, Rolls-Royce was divided into two companies, cars and everything else, BMW owns the one that makes cars. The program I watched is pretty old so there might be a lot of changes now and I don't even remember half of it. BTW I thought Maybach was Chrysler's creation, not Merc's. It was in the car and driver magazine or something similar. I remember reading that the Maybach is specifically Chrysler and not Mercedes. Oh well, I might be wrong on all of this, my memory isn't as good as it used to be.
 
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#3
Why would BMW make the Rolls-Royce engines, I thought Rolls-Royce is famous for thier plane engines, does that mean that BMW makes those? If BMW wasnt making the engines for all those years until BMW took it over just recently then who was? If Rolls-Royce is split into two does that mean that VW still owns the other stuff and BMW owns the cars. How does that work if BMW makes the motors. And your saying Bentley is owned by VW, uh my head is spinning. [???1]

The Maybach is definatly Mercedes, whenever it is refered to it is called Mercedes Maybach, almost as if Maybach is like the name of the car.
 
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#4
The airplane Rolls Royce company and the motor car one are different. BMW supplied engines to Rolls the car company for a while. Then, when Rolls/Bentley was being sold, BMW stole the name from VW b/c of it's prior relationship. That move impressed Dr. P (however you spell the now retired head of VW) so much, that when Bernd Pietschrieder (yeah, I prolly spelled it wrong) was free, Dr. P asked him to come aboard.

Basically, after it was all said and done, VW got all the Rolls and Bentley plants (no big deal since they were old and needed some serious upgrading) as well as the rights to the Bentley name. BMW just got the rights to the Rolls Royce (just the car company) name and nothing else. They had to build their own Rolls factory. Rolls Royce the airplane engine company still exists independently from either BMW or VW.

Maybach is just Mercedes. Chrysler never had anything to do with it. It was created in response to VW and BMWs moves in buying Bentley and Rolls. Maybach was one of those old, fabulous car companies like Deusenburg that went out of business. I think it was associated with Daimler Benz somehow.

Here's a list of the car companies they own:

VW: VW, Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Skoda, I think some Czechoslovakian company, and they're closely linked to Porsche.

BMW: BMW and Mini. I believe they still supply the engines to the Range Rover b/c they used to own Rover before breaking it apart and selling the pieces. Ford now owns the Land Rover company. I think Rover is now held by some group of British investors.

Mercedes: Mercedes, Chrysler, Dodge and close association with Mitsubishi.

Ahh what the hell, I'll throw some other interesting companies in too.

Ford: Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin, good chunk of Mazda

GM: GM, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile and all those other American divisions like Caddy, Daewoo, Saab, Opel, good chunk of Subaru, Isuzu, trying to get out of deal to buy Fiat, some deals with Toyota and Honda

Fiat: Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari (independent pretty much) which then owns Maserati
 


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