It doesn’t matter if it is an economy car or a luxury car, a sports car or a family car, it is likely that one of these families was behind its production. It is that in 2021, 79.1 million cars were manufactured worldwide and 51% were made by just eight families that concentrate various companies of the best-known automobiles.
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This means that 40.3 million of the cars that were purchased that year are part of the companies that these families manage. The permanence of the founding surnames on the boards of directors of the companies, or the appearance of new family groups, only mean the materialization of the dream that began thanks to an entrepreneur who wanted to turn his business idea into a family project.
1. Toyoda Family: Toyota
The Japanese industrialist Kiichiro Toyoda founded Toyota in 1933, however he would have it in 1952. Then his son Kiichiro and his grandson, Akio would take the reins of the Corporation despite not owning even 1% of the group. In the case of Akio, and current CEO, his shares are 4,752,895 shares, a 0.1% stake. His father, who had it on February 14 this year, had 11,176,193 shares in 2008, the last time his total was made public.
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The transition of powers between generations is something common in Japan, so much so that the Toyoda are considered the legitimate shareholders of the company, explains the expert in Japanese corporate governance, Zuhair Khan for Motorpasión. Thus the Toyoda continue to have a weighty voice despite the 86 years that date from the founding of the corporate group.
Toyota is the main producer of cars since 2008 and it would not be for less, taking into account that owns Toyota, Daihatsu, and Lexus, and has stakes in Subaru, Mazda, and Suzuki. As of 2021, it has produced more than 11 million vehicles, of which almost 10.5 million via Toyota and Daihatsu and another 760,000 cars under the Lexus brand.
2. Porsche-Piëch family: Volkswagen Group
The Volkswagen brand is an automobile manufacturer that was born in 1937, due to the political will of Adolf Hitler. However, the Austrian engineer Ferdinand Porsche was the mastermind behind everything from automotive mathematics since he designed the well-known people’s car. Later, he would found his own brand but his descendants would take the reins of Volkswagen.
Ferdinand Piëch, who had on August 25, 2019 and was the grandson of Porsche on his mother’s side, directed the German group for several years. Currently, the Porsches and the Piëchs are the presidents of the board of directors of Porsche SE, a financial holding company that controls the conglomerate of companies and subsidiaries such as Volkswagen AG, Porsche Engineering and Porsche Design Group. The Porsche-Piëch family has 100% of the voting power.
It was reported that during 2021, the German group built a total of 8.3 million vehicles between the Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT, CUPRA, Skoda, Bentley and Lamborghini brands.
3. Chung Family: Hyundai
hyundai palisade in colombia
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After being an official sponsor of the Qatar 2022 World Cup, there is no doubt that Hyundai is one of the most prominent car brands today. Its history dates back to the end of World War II, after the end of the Japanese occupation of Korea, specifically, in 1947.
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Chung Ju-yung was its founder, who gave it the name Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. In 1967 it would be renamed Motor Company with the aim of separating the automobile business from the group’s other business lines. In 1998, Hyundai took control of Kia and in 2007 launched its luxury brand, Genesis.
Today, Chung Eui-Sun, grandson of the founder, is the president of the company and who controls most of the fortune that belongs to the family. Hyundai is the main car company in South Korea and is considered a great example of a business model in that country since it fueled its economic growth in the second half of the 20th century.
4. Agnelli Family: Stellantis
Giovanni Agnelli was the founding businessman of the Fiat business house in 1899. His grandson, who had the same name but took the nickname Gianni, inherited the FIAT company and its management in 1966 after a period in which it was directed by Vittorio Valletta, Another of the founders of Fiat.
Gianni’s grandson, John Elkann, is now the chairman of Ferrari, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Stellantis. The brands of the group of this last group are Abarth, Fiat, Lancia, Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge, RAM, Peugeot, Citroën, DS and Opel. In total they produce 6.1 million cars. They are within the family holding Giovanni Agnelli BV
5. Peugeot Family: Stellantis
This is the new electric peugeot e-208
Stellantis has another family branch, which is made up of the French Peugeot. It is about a family that operated a mill. From 1810 they took an industrial turn and began to work with steel, with kitchen utensils, coffee grinders and watchmaking pieces that gained recognition.
76 years later, Armand Peugeot took an interest in the automobile and created his brand. At the same time, his nephews Pierre, Robert and Jules began to manufacture bicycles in 1897, to later manufacture their first car in 1906. Both companies merged in 1910 to avoid harmful competition between family members and not affect the production of cars. .
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In the 1970s, the Peugeot brand expanded to take over Citroën as well as Chrysler’s European subsidiaries such as Talbot.
After the constitution of Stellantis in 2021, the Peugeot family assumed the vice-presidency from the hand of Robert Peugeot II. The Agnelli via Exor own 14.4% of Stellantis, while the Peugeot family owns only 7%.
6. Ford
Henry Ford founded his company in 1903. Five years later, he brought mass production to the industry with the 1908 Ford Model T, bringing the cost and price of the car down dramatically. A story that does not need a great presentation due to the impact it caused.
Today, Ford is the eighth largest manufacturer in the world, with more than 4.2 million units per year. At the purely executive level of the company, the Ford Motor Company is no longer owned by the Ford family since the late 1950s, but they continue to control the destiny of the brand by having the majority of the voting rights.Ford has the divisions of Mazda, Aston Martin, Jiangling Landwind, Otosan and Ford Sollers.
7. Quant Family: BMW
Autogermana brings the BMW iX xDrive40 M Sport
German BMW iX xDrive40 M Sport
The BMW Group owns the brands BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce and Alpina. But curiously, the Quants were not one of the founding families of the group, it was until 1959 that they took control of the group.
Herbert Quandt and Harald Quandt inherited their father’s industrial empire, forged in Nazi Germany. Among the companies they inherited was BMW on the brink of closure, with a minority stake, the AFA battery factory (VARTA) and 10% of Daimler.
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Herbert Quandt was about to sell BMW to Daimler in 1959, but changed his mind and made a contrary decision: he increased his stake in BMW until he took control of the brand with 50% of the capital.The BMW Group has factories in Germany, the United States, Mexico and South Africa. In 2021, it manufactured a total of 2.5 million cars.
8. Li Shufu Family: Geely
The Chinese company invested close to 2,700 million euros in the purchase from Volvo.
Li Shufu is the owner and founder of Geely. He is the son of a farmer, he started his company thanks to a loan that his father gave him and his first product was spare parts for refrigerators. Today the group owns Geely Auto, Geometry, Lynk&Co, Proton, Volvo, Polestar, Zeekr, London Electric Vehicle Company (LECV) and Lotus.
In addition, it controls Smart and has a 34.06% stake in Renault Motor Korea, as well as Aston Martin, a brand in which it owns 7.60%. For his part, Li Shufu, the owner of 9.96% of the Mercedes-Benz Group.
Maria Isabela Duran San Juan
School of Multimedia Journalism EL TIEMPO
