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Scottish economist Adam Smith had a profound influence on the automotive industry over a century before cars lined the streets of Edinburgh.
The theory of economies of scale he identified and outlined during the 1760s has steered automakers towards joint-ventures, alliances, mergers and take-overs in a bid to save money and boost profits by spreading developing costs. Tie-ups are becoming increasingly common in the late 2010s as companies try to offset the sky-high costs of bringing electrification and semi-autonomous features to the market.
Here are some of the projects that two or more car companies worked on. Some were enduring successes - but some were disastrous:
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Citroën-NSU Comotor (1967)
In the 1960s, a common goal unexpectedly united Citroën and Germany's NSU. Both companies wanted to mass-produce a car equipped with Felix Wankel’s rotary engine. They first formed a Geneva-based joint-venture named Comobil to develop the technology. They later traveled to Luxembourg to create a second joint-venture named Comotor. Its mission was to fine-tune the Wankel engine and mass-produce it for Citroën, NSU and anyone else willing to pay for it.
Comotor engines powered Citroën’s ill-fated M35 (pictured) and GS Birotor models as well as the NSU Ro 80. Reliability problems (with the apex seals, notably) and excessive fuel consumption sealed its fate. The Comotor fiasco and the massive losses it engendered contributed to both brands losing their independence. Volkswagen took over NSU in 1969 and slowly folded it into Audi while Citroën joined Peugeot in 1976.
VERDICT: Disaster
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Volkswagen-Porsche 914 (1969)
Volkswagen wanted to replace the aging Karmann-Ghia with a sportier model but lacked the expertise to develop one from scratch. Porsche sought to replace the 912 with a new, purpose-designed entry-level model but lacked the resources to build it. In the 1960s, they formed a company called VW-Porsche Vertiebs to market and sell a common sports car.
Porsche designed the 914’s mid-engined architecture while Volkswagen provided its then-new type four flat-four engine. The agreement also gave Porsche permission to offer a six-cylinder variant of the car. Though Karmann provided the bodies, Volkswagen assembled the standard 914 (which used an air-cooled flat-four) while Porsche manufactured the 914/6 (which received a flat-six from the 911).
European-spec 914s (pictured) were marketed under the Volkswagen-Porsche banner. The car was sold as a Porsche in North America.
VERDICT: Not bad
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Peugeot-Renault-Volvo V6 engine (1974)
Arch rivals Peugeot and Renault began mulling an alliance in 1966. After developing a four-cylinder engine, they brought Volvo on-board to design a V6 and a V8 for their flagship models. They hastily canceled the V8 in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis and launched the V6 a year later. The Volvo 264 (pictured) became the first car to use the PRV V6 engine.
The six-cylinder also equipped a surprisingly long list of cars including the Peugeot 604, the Renault 30, the Alpine A310, the DeLorean DMC-12, the Volvo 760, the Dodge Monaco and even the Lancia Thema. The Renault Safrane BiTurbo used a 268hp PRV and Venturi squeezed 400hp out of the six for its GT. Production ended in 1998 after nearly a million examples were made.
VERDICT: Triumph
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Porsche 924 (1976)
Volkswagen again asked Porsche to develop a sports car in the early 1970s. On paper, it seemed like the two companies were about to repeat the complicated process that birthed the 914. The big difference was that Porsche merely needed to design the car, not integrate it into its line-up and sell it.
Volkswagen asked for a 2+2 coupe with a front-mounted, water-cooled engine. The model had to use as many existing parts as possible in order to keep development and production costs in check. The project moved steadily forward until Volkswagen canceled it in the middle of the 1970s. The firm instead focused on the front-wheel drive, Golf-based Scirocco.
Porsche bought the project back from Volkswagen (allegedly for less than it charged to develop it), finished it and called it 924. At launch, the company described the 914’s successor as a Porsche for young people and women. The model sold well in spite of its unconcealed Volkswagen roots and it helped Porsche achieve record sales in the late 1970s.
VERDICT: Triumph, but don't say that to Porsche purists
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BMW-Lamborghini sports car (1970s; canceled)
BMW looked across the Alps to find the help it needed to build its first mid-engined sports car. Decision-makers saw Lamborghini as the ideal partner - it had created the Countach, after all - and formed a partnership in the middle of the 1970s.
Lamborghini should have supplied the Giugiaro-designed body and the chassis while BMW’s M division would have assembled the engine. BMW named the car M1 to denote it as M’s first standalone car. Lamborghini delayed the project several times as it unsuccessfully tried to stave off bankruptcy. Increasingly frustrated, BMW ended up canceling the agreement and developing the M1 on its own.
The coupe (pictured) made its debut in 1978, but just 453 were made until 1981, making it one of BMW's rarest production cars. As a result, even poor condition examples sell for a minimum £150,000 in the UK, with mintier versions two to three times that. A great one sold at auction in the US in 2016 for US$577,500.
VERDICT: Mixed, but we would all love to own one
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Isuzu Impulse/Piazza by Lotus (1980)
The Isuzu Impulse/Piazza was designed in Italy, built on American bones, tuned in England and assembled in Japan. It borrowed styling cues from a concept car named Asso di Fiori (‘ace of clubs’ in Italian) presented in 1979 by Giugiaro. The sheet metal hid an evolution of the platform also found underneath the Chevrolet Chevette, among other models.
Isuzu learned it couldn’t credibly sell a sports car if it didn’t handle at least as well as it looked so it sent the Impulse to Lotus for a complete suspension make-over including softer springs, stiffer dampers and redesigned sway bars. In America, the Lotus-tuned Impulse arrived for the 1988 model year. Isuzu proudly added green and yellow ‘Handling by Lotus’ badges behind the front wheels.
VERDICT: OK
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Alfa Romeo 164/Fiat Croma/Lancia Thema/Saab 9000 (1984)
Fiat and Saab began developing the Type Four platform during the late 1970s. Alfa Romeo joined the project in the early 1980s.
The task was easier said than done because the architecture needed to underpin top-of-the-line models sold in Europe and in North America. Fiat planned two versions of the car (one for its own line-up and one for its Lancia division) while Saab and Alfa signed up for one each. The diversity added another degree of complexity to the project: all four cars needed to offer different ride and handling characteristics.
Saab and Lancia launched the 9000 (pictured) and the Thema, respectively, in 1984. Fiat introduced the Croma in 1985 and the Alfa Romeo 164 made its debut in 1987, the year the firm joined Fiat. The Croma, Thema and 9000 were united by a distinct family resemblance. They came from Giugiaro’s studio and shared their doors, roof and windscreen. The Pininfarina-designed 164 received sportier, more angular lines.
VERDICT: Triumph
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Honda Concerto/Rover 400 (1988)
Honda and Austin Rover extended their partnership by co-developing a four-door model. Honda called it the Concerto (pictured) while Rover named it 400. The two cars wore similar proportions but each one received a brand-specific design on both ends. The story was different under the sheet metal, where a lot of the hardware came from the fourth-generation Civic.
Production took place in Japan for the local market and in Longbridge, England, for the European market.
VERDICT: OK
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Mitsubishi Carisma/Volvo S40 (1995)
In 1991, Mitsubishi and Volvo joined the Dutch government’s effort to save the former DAF factory in Born, Holland. The facility needed a car to build so the two firms quickly began developing a platform suitable to underpin a four-door model. The architecture needed to be flexible; Mitsubishi competed largely on price while Volvo played in the near-luxury segment.
The Born factory began producing the Mitsubishi Carisma (pictured) and the Volvo S40 in 1995. The architecture resurfaced in 2000 under the Malaysian-built Proton Waja.
VERDICT: Not good
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Pontiac Vibe/Toyota Matrix (2002)
The Toyota Corolla spawned several General Motors products during the 1990s, including the Geo and Chevrolet variants of the Prizm. These were merely badge-engineered rather than co-developed. At the turn of the millennium, the two companies decided to pool their resources to design new models called Toyota Matrix and Pontiac Vibe, respectively.
Toyota took its version in a sporty, youth-oriented direction while Pontiac gave its model (pictured) rugged, SUV-like styling cues that forged a visual link with the Aztec. Toyota took the lead in the project and period road-testers noted the Vibe looked, felt and drove like a Japanese car in spite of its Pontiac genes.
VERDICT: OK
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Mitsubishi Colt/Smart Forfour (2003)
Daimler’s Smart division couldn’t build a four-seater model on an extended version of the Fortwo platform. It decided to team up with Mitsubishi to jointly develop an architecture that spawned the Forfour (pictured) and the Colt. Mitsubishi’s Nedcar factory in Holland manufactured both cars.
VERDICT: Not good
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Citroën C1/Peugeot 107/Toyota Aygo (2005)
Wafer-thin profit margins in the city car segment increasingly force car companies to spread development costs.
Peugeot and Toyota announced a collaboration in 2001. The B-Zero project created the Toyota Aygo (pictured), the Citroën C1 and the Peugeot 107 in 2005. Each car wore brand-specific front and rear ends while keeping the same middle section. They shared three- and four-cylinder engines, too, and many other components underneath the sheet metal.
The second-generation cars arrived in 2014. The Peugeot and Citroën variants look a lot alike but Toyota put more effort into differentiating its version of the car from its partners’.
VERDICT: OK
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BMW-Peugeot Prince engine (2006)
The Peugeot group formed an unlikely alliance with BMW in 2002 to jointly design and build a family of four-cylinder engines. Called Prince, it included a variety of configurations including 1.4 or 1.6 liters of displacement and either naturally-aspirated or turbocharged.
The Prince engine became available on the Mini Hardtop and the Peugeot 207 in 2006. It later equipped other cars including Peugeot’s 307, 308, 208 and RCZ (pictured) plus the Citroën C3, C4 and C4 Picasso, among other models. Other variants of the Prince engine equipped most members of the Mini line-up and BMW’s 114i, 116i, 118i and 320i models. It should have powered the third-generation Saab 9-3 too, but the model never saw the light at the end of a production line.
BMW started phasing out the Prince engine across its entire portfolio in late 2016. It replaced it with an in-house design. As of 2018, Peugeot plans to continue investing money into refining the Prince engine.
VERDICT: Triumph
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Fiat 500/Ford Ka (2007)
Fiat’s seemingly never-ending quest to achieve synergies led it into a tie-up with Ford. In late 2005, the two companies issued a joint statement outlining plans to jointly develop the 21st century Fiat 500 and the second-generation Ford Ka (pictured). Fiat began building the 500 alongside the Panda in its Tychy, Poland, factory in 2007 and added Ka production to the plant a year later.
VERDICT: A triumph for Fiat; for Ford, not so much
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Subaru BRZ/Toyota 86 (2012)
Toyota acquired a small stake in Subaru in 2005 and quickly set out to fill a gap in both line-ups. At the time, Toyota knew the Celica wouldn’t stick around for much longer so it needed a replacement. Subaru left the coupe segment when it axed the SVX in 1996 and wanted to return. They leveraged their new alliance to develop a small, affordable coupe positioned as a hardtop alternative to Mazda’s MX-5 Miata.
The design brief called for a 2+2 layout, a flat-four engine sourced from Subaru and rear-wheel drive. Work began but the two partners delayed the project indefinitely in 2009 due to the worldwide economic slump. The Toyota GT86 (called 86 in the US) and the Subaru BRZ (pictured) finally arrived in 2012, about a year later than expected.
VERDICT: A Triumph - but more people need to buy them
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Alpine A110/Caterham CT02 (2012)
Renault and Caterham formed a joint-venture in 2013 to co-develop a light, driver-oriented coupe. They had sights on the Alfa Romeo 4C, the Porsche Cayman and the Lotus Evora.
Officials from both brands promised to avoid blatant badge-engineering and share only essential components. Caterham boldly predicted its first mid-engined model would turn it into a global brand but the partnership fell apart during the development process for reasons that remain murky. Renault continued the project on its own and launched the Alpine A110 in 2017; we gave it a five-star rating and generally adore it. Caterham promised to keep working on its car without Renault’s help but the model has likely been shelved.
VERDICT: Trumph, for Alpine
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Renault Twingo/Smart Fortwo (2014)
Renault considered switching to a rear-engined design when it began developing the second-generation Twingo. It shelved those plans for cost reasons but the idea re-surfaced when development of the third-generation model started. This time, the firm teamed up with Smart parent company Daimler to build the Twingo, the third-generation Fortwo, and the second installment of the Forfour on the same basic rear-engined platform.
VERDICT: OK
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BMW Z4/Toyota Supra (2018)
Toyota seemingly can’t justify developing a coupe on its own. After joining forces with Toyota for the GT86, it knocked on BMW’s door for help in resurrecting the Supra. While we haven’t seen the model yet, we know it will ride on the same platform as the next-generation BMW Z4 (pictured).
Insiders suggest it will come with BMW power and interior switchgear and we’ve regularly seen prototypes working out alongside the next Z4 on BMW’s test tracks around the world.
VERDICT: Fingers crossed
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Audi-Porsche PPE platform (2021)
Though they’re both part of the Volkswagen Group, Audi and Porsche operate separate research and development departments. The two companies are collaborating on the development of a platform that will underpin high-end, high-performance electric vehicles. Audi has been appointed the project’s lead developer.
Called PPE, the platform won’t be ready in time to underpin the e-tron quattro and the Taycan, the Volkswagen Group's first salvo of luxury electric cars. Porsche has previously hinted PPE won’t reach production until the end of 2021 at the very earliest. The platform will be flexible enough to underpin a wide variety of models including a low-slung sports car, a high-riding SUV and almost anything in between. Note: Porsche Mission E concept pictured.
VERDICT: We'll see
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Mazda-Toyota electric cars (2021)
In 2017, Toyota and Mazda announced plans to spend $1.6 billion to build a factory in the US. It will make Mazda SUVs and Toyota’s next-generation Corolla when production begins in 2021. The agreement between the two companies also calls for the joint development of electric cars but it’s too early to tell which segment(s) the models will compete in. Note: US market 2018 Toyota Corolla pictured.
VERDICT: We'll see
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