It's way more complicated: Rolls-Royce Motors was split off from the (nationalised, bailed out) Rolls Royce Limited and sold to Vickers plc, who then sold the c

It's way more complicated: Rolls-Royce Motors was split off from the (nationalised, bailed out) Rolls Royce Limited and sold to Vickers plc, who then sold the company to Volkswagen Group following a bidding war with BMW. However, to this day, the Rolls-Royce trademarks (name and logo) are owned by Rolls-Royce Plc, and had been licensed to Rolls-Royce Motors. The change of ownership meant that those trademarks had to be renegotiated, and it ended up with BMW getting the rights to those. Ultimately, the old Rolls-Royce Motors is what is now VW's Bentley division (Bentley having been the "entry level" marquee!), whereas BMW's modern Rolls-Royce company has no such heritage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Motor_Cars#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Motor_Cars#History has a bunch of history of the current VW/BMW split.