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Ferrari is owned by Fiat (and it has an exceptional history). Lamborghini is owned by VW. RR is owned by BMW. All of these cars use technologies funded by or b
by sz4kerto 13y ago
Ferrari is owned by Fiat (and it has an exceptional history).
Lamborghini is owned by VW.
RR is owned by BMW.
All of these cars use technologies funded by or borrowed from their parent. Lamborghini was seriously behind the cutting-edge when VW bought it, now they are catching up (last independently made Lambos had tubular frames).
One of the smallest independent automaker is Mazda, it produces around 1.2M cars per year, they can afford this because they're really innovative.
Tesla has some leeway for now as electric engines are significantly simpler than modern combustion engines, as the latter are extremely difficult to design because of environmental regulations (especially European ones). Designing a nice interior or rigid chassis is simpler than operating a naturally aspirated V10 in the E90 M5 that has an Euro5 cert..
- ams6110 13y agoFord has had varying degrees of ownership in Mazda. For most of the 1990s and early 2000s they had controlling interest. There has been a lot of technology and design sharing. I don't follow it closely, but I think in recent years Ford as sold off a good chunk of their Mazda investment and no longer has a controlling share.
- skyebook 13y agoYeah, I gawked when I saw the Mazda comment too. A bunch of Mazda's in those years, especially the 90's were rebadged Fords. Compare the Mazda Navajo to Ford Explorer Sport's of the same vintage [1] [1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_Navajo http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_Navajo
- chad_c 13y agoThe E60 M5 has an NA v10 ;-)