Hi to the americans out there.

Can anybody tell me the difference between Honda and Acura? They seem to have some models which are the same. For example the NSX, here in europe it's Honda, in an american game the same car was called Acura NSX.
Is it just another brand for the same manufacturer? But there are Hondas in the US, too...

cheers, Thomas

Model names differ between regions, but here Acura is generally considered, IMO, to be the upper-end of the Honda line. More luxorious vehicles than the Accords and Civics.

That may just be in the US, though. When I was in Japan, the NSX also had the Honda logo on it (AFAICT). Not to mention that most of the model names themselves were different over there. I remember the Infinity Q45 was called the "President"

Acura is technically ``Honda of America''. It's Honda's ``luxury'' line (much like Infiniti is for Nissan and Lexus is for Toyota, not that I know those brands exist in Europe) but, other than the NSX, the models are not the same. I believe that the new Acura TSX is the same as the European Honda Accord, though. (And our Honda Accord is different.)

Basically, Americans probably wouldn't want to spend high-dollar amounts on a car that just said Honda, as it still has something of an econobox legacy, so they started a different brand that has a higher cachet.

and on the list goes...

VW -> Audi
Ford -> Mercury -> Licoln

VW -> Audi -> Porsche ???

VW owns Audi, Seat, Skoda, Bentley, Bugatti and Lamborghini.

Nissan owns Infiniti.

Toyota owns Lexus and Daihatsu.

And there's probably way more than that.

Edit:

Even better...

BMW
-Mini
-Rolls Royce

DaimlerChrysler
-Chrysler
-Dodge
-Eagle (brand discontinued)
-Hyundai (DaimlerChrysler only owns a percentage) -Jeep
-Maybach
-Mercedes-Benz
-Mitsubishi (DaimlerChrysler only owns a percentage)
-Plymouth

Fiat
-Ferrari
-Maserati

Ford
-Aston Martin
-Jaguar
-Land Rover (recently bought from BMW)
-Lincoln
-Mazda (Ford only owns a percentage)
-Mercury
-Volvo cars

General Motors
-Buick
-Cadillac
-Chevrolet
-Daewoo
-GMC
-Hummer
-Isuzu (GM only owns a percentage)
-Oldsmobile (brand discontinued)
-Pontiac
-Saab
-Saturn
-Subaru (GM only owns a big percentage)
-Suzuki (GM only owns a small percentage)

Honda
-Acura

Hyundai
-Kia

Nissan
-Infiniti

Porsche -They do a lot of work with VW but Porsche remains its own company

Renault
-Nissan (Renault owns a percentage)

Toyota
-Lexus
-Scion

Volkswagen
-Audi
-Bentley
-Bugatti
-Lamborghini

[source]

Thanks so far.

Most of them i did know already, but there are some surprises in there.
The Acura-thing i didn't know, cause it's an only-american thing.
Lexus is known here, too, although it's not very common.
Infiniti is also unknown to me...

I think, the market for high-priced japanese cars is too small in europe.
Noone would buy a japanese in the same price-range as an Audi, BMW or Mercedes. Even VW has problems to sell their Phaeton, cause it's a VW.

cheers, Thomas

You missed one..

Proton
- Lotus

I think, the market for high-priced japanese cars is too small in europe.
Noone would buy a japanese in the same price-range as an Audi, BMW or Mercedes.

What ?

The Lexus range reaches firmly into the Audi, BMW, Merc price range. A top of the range Lexus IS300 costs £31,000 without any options added and the GS430 £42,000. There are tons of Lexus cars on the road in the UK.

Toyota's Land Cruiser Amazon costs £45,000 and there are plenty of those around.

OK, shouldn't have said europe. In germany you don't see many of them.
In fact, off-road cars mostly are japanese. I thought more about limos as the 3 or 5 series BMW, Audi A4, A6 and so on.
There are a lot of japanese roadsters in germany, too, mostly Miatas or MR2's kind.

cheers, Thomas

A little OT, but I believe that the Touareg/Cayenne is the first time VW and Porsche have shared a platform since the 914. As noted below, Porsche is still independent, but the CEO stated they had to have help making an SUV to remain so....

...though of course the question of why they needed to make an SUV in the first place remains to be answered...

Yeah, I thought his statement was a crock, too.

While BMW did buy Rolls Royce car company they did not get the name, apparently the name is own by the airplane engine manufacture and is licensed in some way.

The story is even better than that.

VW bought bought the Rolls Royce/Bentley company and factory. Something went wrong and they didn't end up with a licence to use the Rolls Royce name.

Then BMW came along and bought the licence to use the Rolls Royce name. It went something like that anyway.

http://www.autointell-news.com/News-2002/September-2002/September-2002-1/September-04-02-p10.htm

Edit:

Some more detail on what happened here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/main.jhtml?xml=/motoring/2003/01/03/emfrol104.xml

I like this bit: "VW's lawyers look over what they have purchased with growing alarm. They approach BMW to see if the supply of designated parts such as air-conditioning systems will be continued. BMW refuses. Piech and Pischetsrieder then have several secret meetings to negotiate a deal."