Mercedes launches smaller line of luxury vehicles as Mini competitor

FWIW, the Smart brand existed outside the US WELL before the vehicles were brought here. I don't believe they were sold anywhere w/a Mercedes badge. I first saw and learned of Smart I believe also at Tokyo Motor Show 2003.

Mini was standalone brand and apparently went thru a bunch of ownership changes before its current ownership by BMW.

VW has numerous brands: Volkswagen Group Brands and Products, as does Renault:

Renault.com - Group Brands



, besides having

Renault.com - The Renault-Nissan Alliance

.

Slightly OT: Regarding , I first learned of them when I heard about a "Samsung Maxima" on maxima.org via the article at Renault Samsung: A French Recipe to Savor - Businessweek. At the time when the 5th gen Maxima was the current version, they were building the 4th gen Maxima in Korea at the Renault Samsung plant and selling them there as the Samsung SM5.

 

If I remember which trip was which, I first saw Smarts on the street in France in 2002. Lots of cars exist outside the US for along time before we get them and we often never get them.

For the most part, the Euro car conglomerates are the result of relatively recent acquisitions while the US brands are the result of mostly pre-WWII acquisitions, or in some cases marketing driven name badge engineering. I get your point though.

But take look at the wide range of Mercedes and BMW products with their mothership's name on them compared to the narrower niches most US car manufacturers have. Also cars like Honda/Acura where "Acuras" were only sold as Acuras in North America, the same cars were Hondas in the rest of the world.