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Earlier this year, Volkswagen announced the launch of its stand alone Jetta brand in China.
Run by the German group in conjuction with long-time Chinese joint venture partner First Automobile Works (FAW), the budget brand will target younger buyers in more rural areas of China.
Along with Jetta, there are a multitude of sub-brands that manufacturers have introduced for a number of reasons. From AMG creating mind-bendingly radical sports cars, to Lexus tapping into the luxury car market, sub-brands cover a larger area of the car industry than you might think.
Read on as we explore the best and worst sub-brands that have ever existed.
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Lagonda (Aston Martin) 1947+
Founded in 1906 by Scottish-American opera singer Wilbur Gunn, Lagonda has had a varied history, producing motorcycles, sports cars and artillery shells.
Acquired by Aston in 1947, the low capacity sports car brand began making four-door luxury variants of Aston’s models and spawned creations such as the Rapide.
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Lagonda (Aston Martin) 1947+
Diving in and out of production for years and struggling to find a niche, the company was again revived in 2008 but once again fell off the radar soon after. Many Lagonda models have been met with critical acclaim, but have failed to sell.
However, Aston Martin has not lost hope, and at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show it revealed the Lagonda All Terrain (pictured) luxury SUV concept, a 'private jet for the road' set to rival the Rolls Royce Cullinan.
Verdict: So far, miss, but the future looks interesting
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RS (Ford) 1968+
2018 marked the 50th anniversary of the first RS (Rallye Sport) model, the front-wheel drive Taunus 15M produced by Ford of Germany. But it would be another two years before the RS brand really resonated with fast Ford fans, with the arrival of the Escort RS1600.
Launched in January 1970, the fast Escort was the work of Ford’s newly established Advanced Vehicle Operations (AVO), which came up with a raft of hot Capris, Escorts and Fiestas.
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RS (Ford) 1968+
The RS brand did not appear in the country of Ford’s birth until the launch of the four-wheel-drive Focus RS (pictured) in America in 2016.
Verdict: Hit
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Gordini (Renault) 1968-1978, 2010+
Amédée Gordini started tuning cars in the 1930s, but once WW2 was over he started to produce his own cars in limited numbers. A switch from Simca to Renault in the 1950s led to Renault-Gordinis being campaigned in the Le Mans 24 Hours throughout the 1960s.
It also led to the introduction of the Dauphine Gordini in 1957 then a string of other Gordini-fettled Renaults including the 5, 12, 17 and 8.
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Gordini (Renault) 1968-1978, 2010+
Renault revived the brand in 2009, to market sporty versions of its Twingo and Clio. And the Wind. Don’t forget the Wind. Oh, too late.
Verdict: Hit the first time, miss the second, so far
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M (BMW) 1972+
When it comes to cachet, few motoring brands can match BMW’s M division. Its first road car was the M1 then we got the M5, M3, M6 and more.
First set up in 1972 as BMW Motorsport GmbH, to develop racing cars, attention had turned to road cars by the end of the decade. In 1993 the division was renamed to simply M – very cryptic, and fittingly just like something from a Bond movie.
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M (BMW) 1972+
Rarely for a sub-brand, M has the status of a manufacturer in Germany. Thus proper M cars have their own VIN prefix separate from normal BMWs and the badge on the door sill says "BMW M GmbH" not "BMW AG", and means that technically, BMW M is not even a subsidiary of BMW.
Like much automotive trivia, that fact is not uninteresting.
Verdict: Hit
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Mugen (Honda) 1973+
Despite what many think, Honda-tuning legends Mugen are not, and has never been, owned by the Japanese car manufacturer but was in fact founded by Soichiro Honda’s son.
Famous for turning bland Honda’s of the past into machines that represent the physical embodiment of insanity, Mugen has a rich history in motorsport.
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Mugen (Honda) 1973+
Having made engines for Formula One cars, Isle of Man TT motorbikes and single seaters, the Japanese tuners have been just the people to spice up Honda’s range.
Despite founder Hirotoshi Honda encountering tax evasion allegations in 2003, the company is still going, strong as ever, and has recently released images of its latest Civic conversion concept (pictured)...interesting to say the least.
Verdict: Hit
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Alpine (Renault) 1973-95, 2018+
Jean Rédélé set up Alpine in 1955, to build sports cars using Renault mechanicals. Always plastic-bodied and rear-engined, by 1973 Renault had bought the company and turned it into a subsidiary.
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Alpine (Renault) 1973-95, 2018+
By 1995 the company had been mothballed due to slow sales, but in 2018 an all-new Alpine was unveiled at the Geneva motor show.
Having won the best Sports Car Award in the 2019 What Car? Awards, the A110 (pictured) has already proven itself as an exceptional machine that will give any Porsche a run for its money.
Verdict: Hit so far
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Quattro/Audi Sport (Audi) 1983+
The UR Quattro reshaped motoring history – and the World Rally Championship – so you can’t blame Audi for cashing in on the brand by milking it as much as possible.
While Audi’s four-wheel drive models carry quattro branding, the German company also set up a division called quattro GmbH to develop high-performance RS models as well as the R8.
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Quattro/Audi Sport (Audi) 1983+
In 2016 the division was renamed Audi Sport GmbH, perhaps in part because it wanted the freedom to launch performance cars that don’t have four-wheel-drive. One such car was unveiled at the 2017 Frankfurt motor show – the rear-wheel-drive limited edition Audi R8 RWS (pictured).
Verdict: Hit
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Nismo (Nissan) 1988+
Although formed as Nissan’s performance division in 1984, it didn’t produce a car until 1987, in the shape of the Skyline R31.
This was followed in 1988 by the Saurus race car, and in 1990 by the Skyline GT-R. A later Z-Tune GT-R, from 2003, saw power of 500bhp and a top speed of over 200mph, and just 19 were made.
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Nismo (Nissan) 1988+
The current 2008 GT-R didn’t get the Nismo treatment until 2015; that car features a power hike to 591bhp and a 50% price hike over the standard GT-R.
At this years' Geneva Motor Show, Nissan displayed an 'Ultimate Dream Garage' - a collection of historic performance Nissan's to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the GT-R and Z sports car ranges.
Alongside the display, Nissan revealed a race-honed GT-R Nismo model that takes both mechanical and design cues from the GT3 race version.
Verdict: Hit
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SVO/SVT (Ford) 1981+
Ford formed its performance-focused Special Vehicle Operations in 1981, and aside from supervising Ford’s race car interests it produced its own car in 1984, the Ford Mustang SVO. A sister division in Australia beefed up models such as the Ford Falcon.
SVO was renamed Special Vehicles Team (SVT) in 1993.
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SVO/SVT (Ford) 1981+
Its most famous recent model was 2010’s SVT Raptor (pictured), a F-150-based supertruck whose 6.2-litre V8 delivered 411bhp. This helped this 2767kg (6100 lb) beast to 60mph in 6.7 seconds.
The SVT name has been dropped from its successor vehicle, and this fact combined with the introduction of the RS brand to America has led some to conclude that the SVT name will be retired to make way for it.
Verdict: Hit
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Saturn (GM) 1985-2009
Launched in 1985, Saturn was GM’s idea of what a revolutionary new small car should be like, and beat the Japanese car makers who were setting up US factories to evade import quotas.
The initial plan was to sell a Saturn model under an existing GM brand, but the plan was changed; by 1990 the first models were on sale.
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Saturn (GM) 1985-2009
But too many Saturn buyers were simply defecting from another GM brand and sales never matched expectations, which is why GM pulled the plug in 2009 along with a number of its other smaller marques.
Pictured is the 2008 Saturn Aura, a sister car to the likes of the Chevrolet Malibu, Opel/Vauxhall Signum and Saab 9-3.
Verdict: Miss
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Acura (Honda) 1986+
Honda was the first of the Japanese marques to create a separate luxury division, when Acura arrived in 1986. Initially offered only in the US and Canada, the brand has since spread to Mexico, Russia, China, Kuwait and Hong Kong.
In the portfolio is a mixture of rebadged Hondas and products unique to the Acura brand, including the imaginatively named TLX, RDX and MDX.
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Acura (Honda) 1986+
Like Lexus until 2005, it remains curious that Acura doesn’t exist in Honda’s home market, where cars branded Acura elsewhere wear Honda badging.
Pictured is the 2018 Acura RDX, Acura’s current best-selling US model, with sales of 63,580 in 2018. It’s built in Ohio.
Verdict: Hit
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HSV (Holden) 1987+
Holden Special Vehicles is the performance arm of GM’s Australian division, and was started by the Scottish race car driver and businessman Tom Walkinshaw.
Its first car was 1988’s Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SV, a homologation special and sister vehicle to the Vauxhall Senator.
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HSV (Holden) 1987+
Its most striking vehicle today is the A$79,990 (US$62,900) HSV Maloo R8 LSA (pictured), a gloriously insane Holden Commodore saloon-based pickup truck, whose retuned Camaro ZL1 6.2-litre V8 will get the car to 60mph in 4.5 seconds.
Sadly, 2017 saw GM end car production in Austrialia, meaning the Commodore died, taking the Maloo with it. HSV will carry on, but as a badge attached to imported models.
Verdict: Hit
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Sterling (Rover) 1987-1991
Despite some pretty approximate build quality over the years, many British marques have done well in the US. One of those was Rover, but Americans grew tired of the shoddiness after a while which is why ARCONA (Austin Rover Cars of North America) set up a completely new brand in 1987.
The sole product would be the 800 series, built in collaboration with Honda. Unfortunately, build quality was appalling. The last Sterlings were sold in 1991, when the marque retreated for good, having sold 40,000 over four years.
Sharing many parts with the far better Acura Legend has ensured a few hundred are still on American roads, and they now have something of a cult following.
Verdict: Miss
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Infiniti (Nissan) 1989+
Nissan introduced the Infiniti brand to American buyers in 1989, with the aim of selling luxury cars with a high profit margin – cars too costly to wear Nissan badges, which didn’t have the required cachet.
It is reasonably successful and keeps up with Acura, but sales trail those of Lexus by a large margin.
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Infiniti (Nissan) 1989+
The brand launched in Europe in 2009, and for the last 10 years has found the going very tough. Finally, after promised sales failed to materialise and the monumental development costs of electrification proving more and more onerous, in March 2019 Infiniti announced that it will cease to sell cars in Western Europe as of early 2020.
Pictured is the Infiniti QX60 that was bought by 47,370 Americans in 2018, making it Infiniti's best selling model.
Verdict: Hit in America and Asia, a miss elsewhere
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Lexus (Toyota) 1989+
When you’ve got an everyman image and you really want to go upmarket big time, the only way to succeed is to start with a fresh brand and wipe the floor with your rivals when it comes to quality, reliability and customer service.
Easier said than done, but it’s exactly what Lexus did when it launched in the US in 1989.
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Lexus (Toyota) 1989+
Since then it’s gone on to carve out a niche for hybrid cars, along with a reputation for peerless reliability and unsurpassed dealer quality.
Curiously, Lexus was not launched in Japan itself until 2005; prior to that cars branded Lexus elsewhere wore Toyota badges.
Verdict: Hit
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AMG (Mercedes) 1999+
AMG started out as an independent company, set up in 1967 by Hans Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher to make Mercedes cars go faster.
Initially the focus was on motorsport, then came the souped-up road cars. AMG gained a reputation for brilliant work so Mercedes started sniffing round and took a controlling interest in 1999.
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AMG (Mercedes) 1999+
By 2005 AMG had become wholly owned by Mercedes and now the sub-brand has its own relationships with engines and certain technology with Pagani and Aston Martin, and also makes AMG-only models like the AMG GT (pictured).
Verdict: Hit
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Will (Toyota) 2000-2005
The precursor to the Scion project was the Will, set up in conjunction with a raft of other brands including Panasonic, Asahi Breweries and – intriguingly – the Kinki Nippon Tourist Company.
Products included confectionery, electronics and cars, the latter based on Toyota platforms and running gear. Between 2000 and 2005 when the brand was wound up, Toyota produced three different Will models, only for the home market.
Verdict: Miss
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Scion (Toyota) 2002-2016
Toyota is nothing if not optimistic. Realising that those hip young Americans didn’t want a Toyota because the brand was too popular with wrinklies, in 2002 a new sub-brand was introduced.
Called Scion, the idea was that there would be a mixture of models in Scion showrooms, some unique to the marque while others were reheated Toyotas.
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Scion (Toyota) 2002-2016
At first things seemed to go well, with 173,034 sales in 2006, and models like the Scion FR-S (pictured, and known as Toyota GT-86 in most other markets) were well received by the press.
However, sales for 2015 had dropped to 56,167 units and Toyota pulled the plug in 2016.
Verdict: Miss
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Maybach (Mercedes) 2002-2012, 2014+
Wilhelm Maybach set up a company to make very expensive and luxurious cars in 1909, but by the end of the second world war it was all over.
In 1997 Mercedes revealed that it was reviving the marque and soon after we got the 57 and 62, which sold like bacon rolls at a vegan convention; it turned out that the few people for whom the Maybach name still had resonance in were either extremely old or not members of the super-rich club that could afford one.
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Maybach (Mercedes) 2002-2012, 2014+
The result was the Maybach brand being mothballed in 2012, only for it to be revived again as the range-topping Mercedes-Maybach S-Class (pictured) in 2014. A large Maybach-badged SUV based on the Mercedes GLS-Class will arrive in 2019.
Verdict: Hit
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SRT (Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep) 2003+
SRT stands for Street & Racing Technology and is a performance group within Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
Its first car was inauspiciously based on the otherwise lacklustre Dodge Neon of 2003; the 4-cylinder turbocharged Neon SRT was very fast however and one was clocked by Maine police doing 146mph in 2016.
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SRT (Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep) 2003+
SRT is probably best known today for making rather larger cars with big engines. Its fastest car today is the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon (pictured), whose 6.2-litre supercharged Demon HEMI V8 belts out 797bhp and gets the car to 60mph in just 2.3 seconds.
Verdict: Hit
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VXR (Vauxhall) 2004+
Few brands are less aspirational than Britain’s Vauxhall, which was owned by GM until 2017. Seen on a level with Ford in terms of brand equity, but without that marque’s reputation for brilliant dynamics.
To counter this, GM came up with the VXR brand in 2004, spun off from its VX Racing division. Things looked promising at first as the first cars to wear VXR badges were the Monaro and VXR220.
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VXR (Vauxhall) 2004+
The Corsa and Vectra weren’t bad either, but the Zafira and Meriva VXR hot people carriers were just silly. Sister European brand Opel has OPC, which makes essentially identical models to the VXR.
Verdict: Hit, but only just
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Abarth (Fiat) 2007+
Carlo Abarth worked wonders in the 1950s and 1960s, most famously souping up Fiat 500s although he worked on plenty of other models too.
By 1971 he had sold his business to Fiat which turned it into a go-faster sub-brand like Ford’s RS.
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Abarth (Fiat) 2007+
In 2007 Fiat set up Abarth as a separate brand within its group, with a view to selling hot 500s and Grande Puntos.
In 2016 it launched the Fiat 124 and Mazda MX-5 Miata-derived Abarth Spider; we drove the Rally version a while ago and got quite carried away (see above).
Verdict: Hit
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DS (PSA) 2009+
It’s hard trying to push your cars upmarket when they’re wearing Citroën or Peugeot badges, which is why PSA devised this offshoot for all markets except North America and South Asia.
The problem is, up until recently, all we had seen was rebadged Citroëns. But now with the marque seemingly getting some momentum, things should likely improve.
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DS (PSA) 2009+
And now this sub-brand has a sub-brand of its own; its plug-in hybrids will get E-Tense branding. This photo from April 2017 shows then-newly elected President of France Emmanuel Macron in the recently released DS7 Crossback SUV.
Verdict: Jury still out
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i (BMW) 2013+
When BMW decided to embrace electrification it didn’t do it half-heartedly. It set up a new factory to build carbon-fibre bodyshells and it founded a new brand to market them. Called simply i, the first models were the i3 and then the i8.
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i (BMW) 2013+
BMW’s follow-up was an iPerformance designation for plug-in hybrids such as the 330e and 740e.
The i Vision Dynamics concept car (pictured) previewed a new BMW 3 Series-sized electric vehicle with a 373-mile range that will go on sale in 2021, probably to be known as the i5.
Verdict: Jury still out - it's true that the i3 has not sold as well as BMW hoped, but we'll give this one the benefit of the doubt as it's very early days...
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SVO (Jaguar) 2014+
Launched in 2014, JLR’s Special Vehicle Operations aims to offer three different types of ultimate product: ultra-fast road-going models (SVR), ultra-luxurious off-roaders (SVX) and pinnacle machines badged SV-Autobiography, sitting at the top of the market.
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SVO (Jaguar) 2014+
So far the brand has remained fairly low-key, though we’re huge fans of the five-star 542bhp Range Rover Sport SVR and have just tested the brand new 176mph Jaguar F-Pace SVR. We expect to see much more from SVO in the coming years.
Verdict: Looking good so far
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Vignale (Ford) 2014+
Italian coachbuilder Vignale set up shop in 1948; by 2014 it had become a Ford sub-brand.
The moniker was introduced to push Ford upmarket; its mainstream models would be loaded with kit and Vignale badges would be stuck on to create a premium halo brand in Europe.
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Vignale (Ford) 2014+
But posher cabin materials and more buttons to press don’t take away the fact that this is still a Ford – which despite its excellent products isn’t seen as aspirational by many car buyers, and loaded they may be, but Vignales are by no means cheap.
The latest Vignale treatment is for the Fiesta.
Verdict: Jury still out
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e-tron (Audi) 2014+
Reserved for its electrified cars, Audi introduced the e-tron brand in 2009 on a concept car but it would be another five years before there was a production e-tron in showrooms – a plug-in hybrid A3 Sportback.
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e-tron (Audi) 2014+
Pictured is the marque's first stand alone model, the e-tron SUV released in 2018. However, Audi needs to keep its eye on the ball, despite the e-tron initiative being 10 years old, both Jaguar and Tesla beat it to launch fully-electric SUVs.
Verdict: Too early to say
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Genesis (Hyundai) 2015+
It’s an age-old problem; you’ve got a down market image and you want consumers to see you as aspirational. So what do you do? You set up an stand-alone brand that’s upmarket of course.
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Genesis (Hyundai) 2015+
Hyundai first launched a Genesis saloon in 2008 but in 2015 the brand became a stand-alone marque in the US and certain other markets with the introduction of the Mercedes S-Class sized US$68,100 G90 (pictured), followed by the G80 in 2016.
The smaller G70, launched in 2018, received mixed but generally positive reviews. It showed that the marque is serious about shaking things up in the luxury car market, and its next target could be Europe. Who knows, if things continue like they are, Genesis could be a serious contender.
Verdict: Jury still out - it won't be easy nor quick
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EQ (Mercedes) 2018+
Electrification has led a lot of car makers to think carefully about their marketing strategies and for Mercedes this has led to the setting up of a new division called EQ.
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EQ (Mercedes) 2018+
At the 2018 Frankfurt motor show Mercedes unveiled the EQA (pictured), a pert preview concept of a new 249-mile range electric compact car that should hit the road in 2020.
Verdict: Too early to tell
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Polestar (Volvo) 2018+
Founded in 1996 as Flash Engineering, the company was renamed Polestar in 2005. Four years later Polestar started working with Volvo to offer officially sanctioned performance upgrades for its production cars.
Volvo then acquired Polestar in 2015 with a view to turning it into its performance arm.
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Polestar (Volvo) 2018+
Recently it has announced that the division will focus on producing high-performance electrified cars as a stand-alone brand.
Verdict: So far, hit, but who knows what the future will hold
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Cupra (SEAT) 2018+
Before 2018, the Cupra name was simply to SEAT what RenaultSport is to Renault or Type R is to Honda – a name bunged on the end of regular models that had been made a bit hotter than the originals, in SEAT’s case, this was the Ibiza and Leon Cupra models.
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Cupra (SEAT) 2018+
However, in 2018 SEAT announced that Cupra would become a stand-alone brand with the sole purpose of creating mind-bendingly extreme variations of their current range, starting with the Ateca.
The outcome of Cupra’s first endeavor? A 300hp, 150mph beastly SUV so extreme it took home What Car?’s Sports SUV award this year. More of that please.
Verdict: So far, so good
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Jetta (Volkswagen) 2019+
A budget brand aimed at younger motorists outside of China's major cities, Jetta will sell cars in the guises of the VA3 (rebadged Volkswagen Jetta), the VS5 (pictured in next slide - rebadged SEAT Ateca) and VS7 (rebadged SEAT Tarraco), with the option of a compact SUV based on the SEAT Arona arriving at a later date.
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Jetta (Volkswagen) 2019+
With Volkswagen having exported 3.11 million cars to China in 2018, it is by far the companies single largest market.
Depsite this, company boss Jürgen Stackmann claims that aim of Jetta is to close the gap between the flaghip Volkswagen brand and entry-level mobility, thus increasing its market coverage even further.
Delivery of the first Jetta models is expected to take place in the third quater of 2019.
Verdict: Too early to tell
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Geometry (Geely) 2019+
An electric-only marque with the intent of challenging Tesla and provding China with an afforded electric car, Geometry is a subsidiary of China's largest car manufacturer, Geely.
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Geometry (Geely) 2019+
Its first model - the Geometry A - was unveiled at this year's Shangai motorshow and is aimed directly at the Tesla Model 3. We recently tested it; it's good.
Despite the vague handling, body roll and somewhat leisurely performance, the Geometry A is refined and practical with quality interior materials and a very decent claimed single-charge range of 311 miles (in the model fitted with a larger battery).
27,000 have already found homes in China, and Geely has said the saloon will, at some point, arrive in Europe.
Verdict: Promising, but too early to tell
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