Cars, TG n more | Siddharth Abbineni

In one of the latest episodes of Top Gear, they tested the Bugatti Veyron and pushed it to its max speed. I was done on a secret, private Volkswagen circuit. That made me wonder, What is the relation between Bugatti and Volkswagen?. A quick search revealed a lot of interesting and shocking facts.

All the time I was under the impression that each car brand is completely independent and that the competition is fierce among them. I was wrong, for example, Volkswagen owns nine, NINE!, different brands some of which are Audi, Lambo, Bugatti, Porsche. I was quite amazed by that. So went on to research on other car brands.

The worst part of this search task was that I found some statements which really hurt my confidence in car knowledge. You see, after watching Top Gear in the amounts I do, we usually develop this feeling, rather, a belief that all Vauxhall cars are useless and that they are the worst of the lot. Its an impression Jezza creates in all the viewers by stressing that fact in almost all the episodes.

When I clicked on the Vauxhall wiki page, it had this.

Vauxhall Motors is a UK car company. It is a subsidiary of General Motors. Most current Vauxhall models are right-hand drive derivatives of GM’s Opel brand

That statement devastated me. Why? I have an Opel Corsa, and so now its can also be a Vauxhall Corsa. First when I heard of the Vauxhall Corsa, I though it was a coincidence that they had the same name, little I knew it was the same Corsa. Damn. But hey its not a Vauxhall Vectra and some Vauxhalls are good too! Take the VX220 for example, its better than the Lotus Elise!

I still love the corsa :D

Some of the major car companies and their brands…

Volkswagen: