I'd seen such things as this before, but never with the detail I wanted. It would usually only cover the most major manufacturers, miss entire markets, only cover ownership relationships...basically it'd be a slickly produced copout.

I spent less than 8 hours putting this together. It's not the prettiest thing in the world, being made in Openoffice.org, but it gets the job done. The job is to bewilder you with the dizzying number of ties between automakers in the world.

What's probably most disturbing here is the fact that I put down maybe half these links from memory.

Before you get all pissed off that I didn't include your favorite company or your country isn't represented, here is how the chart works:

Companies are only included if they have existed as a manufacturer independent of other auto manufacturers (so holding companies and investment firms are okay) at some point in the last 30 years (sorry, Holden). Little tiny coachbuilders aren't included (no Rinspeed), though some small-volume supercar builders are (Koenigsegg).

Links are color coded by type. Some links are dotted out. That's because either the relationship no longer exists, or because it has be superceded by another. For example, Chrysler bought AMC, then Chrysler merged with Daimler-Benz. So now AMC is part of Daimler-Benz. This gives some sense of chronology, although generally I haven't bothered with that.

This chart is not meant to contain all information on how each company related to the others, is is to give an overview of the relationships in the auto industry. A glance at the overall picture.

This is a work in progress, and omitted companies may be added later.

Click on this small version to see it big.

And here is the original Openoffice.org drawing file. (.ODG)

And here is is in PDF.

Feel free to spread this chart around. If you're going to link directly to my image (I've got enough bandwidth so that's usually alright, but it's still bad form) please don't do it from someplace that gets a shitload of traffic. I mean it's cool that I can see who is looking at my images and all, but sometimes I do actually use a significant portion of my transfer.