Every Car Brand Ford Owns In 2024

A surprisingly few number of companies own most of the major automobile brands in the world, but when it comes to American motors, there are three major companies everyone should be aware of: Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. All three of them are massive corporations, but the reach of the latter two is a lot wider than Ford. General Motors and Stellantis are both parent companies to many different brands. You don't buy a car from General Motors, for example; you buy one from Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, or Buick. With Stellantis, you buy one from Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep, or Ram. And those aren't even all of the brands those two companies own, either.

When it comes to Ford, however, that is what you are buying. You go to a Ford dealership to get yourself a Ford. Because of that, you may not realize that Ford is responsible not just for its own brand but several others as well, although its scope is far narrower than its competitors. It's even narrower than it was years ago, when it had its hand in several other companies. Sometimes, Ford chose to discontinue those brands, like it did with Mercury. Other times, it sold them off to other companies, such as Jaguar, Volvo, and Land Rover. In the case of its relationship with Mazda, Ford invested heavily in the Japanese automaker to bring it to the United States, but it subsequently sold all of its shares in it.

As of 2024, Ford only has two brands to its name. The first is obviously the standard Ford brand, and the other is one that the company has owned for over 100 years.

With all of the acquisitions, divestments, and mergers over the course of Ford's long history, one thing has remained steadfast throughout that time: control of the Lincoln Motor Company. Ford actually acquired the brand all the way back in 1922 and has held onto it ever since. Lincoln stands as the luxury arm of Ford, and in those 102 years, it has created some truly iconic vehicles, such as the Continental, the Navigator, and the Town Car. Although Lincoln's history is expansive regarding what kind of vehicles it has made, it currently only offers a variety of different SUVs in the United States, alongside the Lincoln Z sedan, which is sold exclusively in China in collaboration with Changan Automobile.

Lincoln has also served as the brand that Ford used as a means to fold its other brands into one company. For many years, it was even known as Lincoln-Mercury when Ford decided to merge those two companies. But when push came to shove, it was Mercury that saw the end of its life in 2011, while Lincoln lived on.

This is also the company where Ford is willing to try out its most extravagant ideas, such as the Lincoln L100 concept car that is about as big of a creative swing as an automaker has made in recent years (though no production plans are currently in place for it). With Ford being one of the big three companies, it's rather impressive that it has been able to be as successful as it has with just Ford and Lincoln to call its own.