Everyone knows the tale of Brand X getting bought out by some faceless global conglomerate and going to shit, but does the opposite ever happen?
Everyone knows the tale of Brand X getting bought out by some faceless global conglomerate and going to shit, but does the opposite ever happen?
First thing that comes to mind is Lamborghini which would not exist today if it were not acquired. It was on the verge of bankruptcy and ended up getting passed around a few times before being acquired by Volkswagen/Audi. I think the general consensus is that access to Audi’s technology brought some sophistication in the form of AWD, traction and stability control, and a bump in quality and reliability. I know they only make obscenely expensive cars that few people ever get to enjoy, but they were able to maintain a headquarters and factory in Italy with a few thousand employees which would have definitely shut down without the acquisition.
Edit: On the topic of cars, another example would be Red Bull Racing which originated as a small F1 team started in the 90s. It was bought by Ford and rebranded to Jaguar F1. Ford didn’t have much success with it, so they sold the whole team to Red Bull for $1. Red Bull went on to dominate from 2010 to 2013 and again from 2021 to present day.
What was Red Bull racing originally called?
Stewart Grand Prix (Jackie Stewart’s old team), then Jaguar, then Red Bull racing (or a variation thereof).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Racing
Most teams have a longer list of previous names.
Cool, I didn’t realize teams got taken over in that way, I thought it was a whole new team.
It’s quite fun tracing some of them back - especially the frontrunners which grew put of backmarkers (though often you find the backmarkers were themselves frontrunners 20 years earlie)r.
For example, Tyrrell were world champions with Jackie Stewart in the 70s, but by the mid 1990s, they were pootling around at the back of the field with Ukyo Katayama.
Tyrrell became British American Racing, which became Honda Racing, which became Braun GP, which became Mercedes, who up until Red Bull’s current dominance, were doing pretty well :)
Yeah only Ferrari, McLaren and Williams are still driving under the name it was founded with. Haas could maybe also be counted but it was created by buying up the assets of Manor/Marussia after it collapsed, they technically didn’t buy the Marussia team. I’m not sure if it is a whole new team or if most people working for Marussia just got rehired by Haas.
It’s hard to start a new team from scratch, and there’s pretty much always some team that’s struggling at the back, so usually it’s done this way. Andretti is trying to start one from scratch tho.
IIRC Stewart Grand Prix and then Jaguar Squad. Not an F1 guy though so could definitely be wrong.