They Made What?

3/4/2025

Podcast Episode: 0240
what other products has the Automotive World Made.

Unlock the unexpected world of automotive giants as they venture far beyond the assembly line. Prepare to be amazed by the bold and innovative moves of companies like Volvo, Hyundai, Honda, and more, as they expand into industries including shipping, construction, aviation, and even robotics. Discover about Honda's strides in robotics with the ASIMO and their foray

into the skies with the Honda Jet. This episode peels back the curtain on the multifaceted nature of these renowned manufacturers, offering a fascinating glimpse into their surprising and diverse product lines.

I always used to ask the question when I was little. Hey, I grew up going to the camp and riding around in boats, but the one question I always had, being a car person, is that Mercury outboard on the back of our boat is that from Mercury automobiles? It's a question I had a lot as a kid and a lot of people never really got back to me on it. So, years down the road I finally decided to do a little bit of research and well, no, it's not made by Mercury, not made by Ford Motor Company at all. Mercury Outboards is completely different, but it plays on the fact that Mercury Cars was a big name for its time. But while doing that research, I found out about a lot of different things, and a lot of car companies out there have built all kinds of different products that you wouldn't even think of, from robots to airplanes, to tanks and bombers. Hell, a few of them built outbound motors and hell, one even helped build the first vehicle to leave our planet. Yeah, car companies have been around and built many, many different things, and you'd be surprised about what some companies actually make and what some companies are famous for besides their own automobiles. Today, AutoLooks is going to be taking a look at. They built what.

Welcome back to the AutoLooks Podcast. I am your host, as always, the doctor to the automotive industry, Mr. Everett Jay, coming to you from our host website at AutoLooks.net. If you haven't been there, stop by, check it out. Read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings. Go to the Corporate Links website page. Big or small, we have them all, car companies from around the globe, all available on the AutoLooks.net website. Click the Corporate Links at the top of the page the AutoLooks.net.

So, like I said in the beginning, they built what a lot of car companies have built a lot of different things, hell. Some car companies even started out as something completely different than what they're famous for now, and when you go back through history there's tons and tons of them. But some of them are just plain. You got to look at it and wonder to yourself why, why did they do it, why did they make that? And others you have to look at and go, huh, I never even thought about that. That's pretty cool. Some of these companies are actually still in existence and still part owned by these major corporations, while others have completely divested themselves away from what they originally built Hell. Take a look at Volvo. Volvo Cars is now owned by Geely, but Volvo Trucks a completely different entity from the automobile. Now, while building trucks and construction equipment, Volvo has gotten into just about everything.

It's kind of like Hyundai. Hyundai is one of the largest shipping companies in the world. They build ships and freight stuff all over the world with Hyundai logistics on top of that. They build construction equipment as well. It's kind of amazing when you think about it. This company that you think is one of the top five in the world for automobile manufacturing is also one of the top companies in the world for shipping.

And then you're sitting there at a railway crossing watching this train go by. And how many times do you see Hyundai? Yeah, you a lot of Hapag-Lloyd. But then you see Hyundai. It's like Hyundai. Ah, it's got to be a different company, right? No, it's the same company. Those containers you're seeing are from Hyundai, part of Hyundai transportation.

They have a massive logistics you have to remember. You have to ship parts for all your cars all over the world. You're gonna ship your cars all over the world. Well, to save money and make. Ship your cars all over the world. Well, to save money and make it a lot easier. They decided, hey, why don't we just own the shipping yards, own the ships and own the logistics company? We'll own every other part of that. Even if we're not building every single part that goes into our automobile, everything else that brings it to and from us is going to be operated by us.

It's an amazing analogy. It's kind of like one of my favorite bands, iron Maiden, when they were big in the 1980s. Bruce looked at it and said it's kind of cost us a fortune to freight these people and all of our stuff all over the world. Well, if you didn't know this, Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer of Iron Maiden, is also a commercial pilot. With that they bought a 747 called Ed Force One, like Eddie, their famous character from the Iron Maiden band and with that Bruce can fly the plane while the band sits in comfort and the entire stage, crew and all of that stuff is loaded onto the plane and flown to its next place. Hell, I've had friends actually see Ed Force One at Pearson International Airport in Toronto and send me pictures. It's true they do this to save money, kind of like Hyundai Logistics.

But other companies have gotten into amazing things just by technology. Honda is amazing. He built motorcycles in the beginning and then got into Formula One racing and from there he built his cars. But he's also big the entire corporation into technology and they have one of the most advanced public use robots around, a Simo. You could buy them. It'll play soccer with you at home, it'll walk up and down stairs, it'll bring you all kinds of stuff. You can actually purchase an ASIMO robot for your own house. Granted, you got well over $100,000. You want to clunk down and you got to pay for all the maintenance, upkeep and everything else. But the ASIMO robot is built by Honda. Well, on top of that, Honda likes to go outside of where it is and it loves building motors, what's called generators, lawnmowers, motorcycles, side-by-sides, quads They've gotten into nearly everything and anything with a motor to ship their people all over the world. Honda decided to build its own airplane, the Honda Jet, and it's now going up against Lear and Bombardier Corporation. Yeah, my homegrown aeronautics corporation Bombardier now has a competition from Japan with Honda Jet, an airplane from Honda.

And just a couple of years ago, Sony was playing around with the idea to showcase their new technology for vehicles, but unlike companies like Xiaomi and Huawei, they decided to get into bed with Honda. Honda already knows automobile production and they saw the fallout from the Apple car and even the Dyson automobile. They decided to get in bed with Honda, with an automobile manufacturer, and Honda wanted to get in bed with Sony for technology. Well, now they have the Afeela, a brand-new sedan designed and created, with all of its technology inside of it, by Sony, an electronics corporation, a company who also builds the Sony PlayStation, which was originally developed for Nintendo. So, they developed all of these things together, but now they're building a car, kind of like Xiaomi and Huawei. They built smartphones, they were telecommunications and electronics, and now they build cars.

Xiaomi is doing it all on its own and Huawei is doing it with a multitude of different companies. They're in bed with three separate automotive corporations, all to see where they can hit the market and which one they can best utilize to bring their car to the market, now being part of generalized products, luxury products and even high-end products, where they can hit the market, and which one they can best utilize to bring their car to the market Now being part of generalized products, luxury products and even high-end products. Huawei is all there from a company who builds one of the best phones in the world, the one that goes up against Apple. And now they build cars. Well, they don't build cars, but they've gotten into building it. Toyota is one similar to Honda, and the funny thing is most Japanese auto manufacturers have jumped into building all kinds of different things Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Subaru they all built all kinds of different things.

Mitsubishi. They're one of the biggest electronics manufacturers from Japan, but on top of that, Mitsubishi is also famous for being one of the top financial institutions in all of Japan. They're one of the top three banks in Japan, Mitsubishi Financial. They're also one of the biggest mining companies in Japan and their mining was huge. If you've watched James Bond, oh God, which one was that? Was it Spectre that he goes to this famous island and it's all decrepit? Looks like a mining city. Well, one of the most densely populated islands in the entire world when the mining operation was going on was Hashima Island off the coast of Japan, and the island was run by Mitsubishi Mining. Hell, there's mining like financial backing for Mitsubishi Mines in my backyard, for mines in Northern Ontario. Mitsubishi is backing them. They're helping them get built. They're huge into mining. They're helping them get built. They're huge into mining, they're huge into financial and they're one of the biggest for electronics.

All from a company that you look at and you're like, are they going to make it? Are they going to die tomorrow Because they barely have any automobiles? You're like, oh, Mitsubishi’s done for. Then you realize what they make. A lot of Japanese companies build those things because they got started in one thing and built out from that. Toyota has built many different things over its time and between both Toyota and Lexus. Toyota has built military vehicles Hell; they have their own style Hummer from the 1990s. They're building a brand-new hydrogen fuel cell moon rover that you can actually live in. They're going to be sending to the next mission on the moon. They built houses, like Honda. They built the Kirobo mini robot. And Toyota also builds boats for people. You don't see them everywhere, but they build boats and, like this, Lexus builds luxury yachts. How Lexus has also built a bento box for consumers high-end bento box and famous back in 2015 when Toyota pushed out a 2015 Toyota Tacoma back to the future edition, because everyone loves that original Tacoma from 1985 and the original back to the future. So, Toyota decided to release a new one.

Well. Lexus, on the other hand, decided to make a hoverboard. It really didn't work like the hoverboard that you see in the back to the future series. No, the hoverboard that they made was essentially just a magnetic field. It was two opposing magnets so it looked like it was floating. It looked like it was an actual skateboard floating above the ground, but there was an embedded magnetic track below the entire area that this hoverboard was floating over top. So, without that it wouldn't be able to operate. But they still made it for 2015 to showcase that it is a possibility to do a hoverboard style thing always makes you wonder why don't they put magnetic tracks on the road and build hover cars onto that scale? They'd have to put them everywhere and that's a massive undertaking for infrastructure, kind of like the massive undertaking we're trying to do for the electric vehicle systems and the push for hydrogen as well.

And if you really didn't know this, Subaru was originally an aircraft company, Fuji Industrial building fighter jets. Well, they eventually got into building automobiles as well, but they have aircraft heritage similar to Saab, Spyker and BMW, who have a heritage in aeronautics as well. Saab is one of the biggest ones, but how Saab got started was the Saab fighter jets After the end of World War II. They had a massive production facility and the government was looking for ways to use it. And Saab came up with the idea why don't we just build a car for the people? And they did. They built Saab automobiles. So, Saab automobiles actually came from a need for a country to rebuild itself on the automobile playing field while utilizing a manufactured facility from wartime efforts.

If you want to know more about the Saab story, go back and listen to Saab Life and Times. It's a podcast from our first season five years ago. It's a pretty good one. You might not like General Motors by the end of it, because we do get into a lot of that. How about GM, Chrysler and ford have all built different things, and during the war they built tons of stuff for the war effort. How ford teamed up with bantam to build the original jeep which eventually willies took over after the end of World War II, and then Chrysler got their hands on its years later, after Willy’s folded, when it became part of American Motors. Later on, when American Motors folded and was purchased outright by Chrysler corporation. It's now part of that, but that's a completely different story. Go and listen to our story about American Motors from the AutoLooks Podcast.

But the war after it, Chrysler built boats back in the day because, well, Walter P wanted a way to get around to his camp During the war. They got into rocketry in the M1 Abrams tank. General Motors We'll get into that after Ford. Ford has gotten into boat motors as well and, like I said, they didn't build the Mercury outboard motors. That's a completely different company. Ford built their own brand of boat motors. Ford has also built transport trucks dump trucks hell; they still build transport trucks today for South American marketplaces.

When I was a kid, I remember seeing Ford dump trucks going out in the boat. I remember seeing Ford school buses out in the boat. They got into heavy machinery. There was tractors Hell, my dad owned a Ford tractor and Ford was one of the best tractors. Between the 60s and 70s everyone wanted a Ford tractor and today it's not there, they're just cars.

While Ford also built for World War II tons of airplanes. The B-24 Liberator bomber and a tri-motor for airplanes was built by Ford to help the war effort. But Ford also built Philco, a consumer electronics company, to build electronics for both their vehicles and the consumer sales. General Motors has done this as well. But GM did it with Frigidaire. They managed to get their hands on Frigidaire and they actually still own a portion of it. Yes, Frigidaire. When you're actually purchasing it, you're purchasing something from General Motors. Kind of interesting when you'll actually dive deep into it.

But one of my favorite things from GM was the NASA rover, the collaboration between Boeing and NASA and General Motors. The original NASA rover was built. It's part GM technology. Gm's on the moon. They're the only car company that can literally say we're on the moon. Well, next to Audi now, because we all know that Audi, through the European Space Agency, sent one there as well. So, yeah, but that's a rover. The NASA rover from General Motors was actually driven by human beings on a different planet.

But GM, during the early days, decided to get into the Electric Motive Corporation, train engines. General Motors had trains. Well, you got to remember 1930s and 40s and even into the 50s, trains were still king for main transportation across nations. Well, gm, with William C Durant at the helm, wanted to make as much money as possible. And to do this, well, why not get into the number one transportation system out there, let's build train engines, and they did One of the earliest electric motive trains. Hell, General Motors helped concrete barriers and highways, but one of the coolest things that they built through all their technology is keeping people alive. Gm was one of the earliest companies to help develop the first working mechanical heart. Gm was there. They wanted to help keep people alive and they did it. A mechanical heart, a heart, a life of a human being. They helped to keep people alive.

Well, one of the great stories about I Can't Believe they Made that is we all know how Lamborghini got started. He built tractors and up until the 1980s, the tractor division was still part of the car division when they finally divested themselves away from each other due to their fallout in the 1980s, Lamborghini still built tractors, built supercars alongside tractors. Well, Porsche got his start that way too, by building a few tractors. But then he was hired by Hitler to help build a car for the people, the People's Car, which helped create Volkswagen. You don't see a lot of Porsche tractors kicking around anymore, but there are a few out there and with Lamborghini during the 1980s, to try and rebuild some of their strength, they went after a military contract with the Italian military, they built the Cheetah military truck. Unfortunately, they didn't win the contract.

With all the money pumped into this project, they decided let's see what we could do with it, which eventually we got the LM001, which, up until the release of the Urus and the increase of the SUV/ CUV marketplace, the LM001 was one of those vehicles that always caught you off guard. Yours, like Lamborghini, a supercar manufacturer. No, no, no, they never built a truck. Well, they did. Remember the first time I saw an LM001? I'm like what the hell is that? And I found out about it at its point in time. It was the fastest accelerating pickup truck in the marketplace. The box in it was totally unusable and yet people still bought them. It was great for Middle Eastern sheiks to go bombing through the back deserts. You could find them on nearly every major continent because somebody managed to get their hands on one of them. They were cool, but they were only for the rich.

On the other side, in Europe, there's a few companies that have built some interesting things the Audi, Bugatti, Peugeot, Volkswagen and BMW. BMW has actually gotten into helping the Olympic effort by building bobsleds for the German bobsled team. Yeah, BMW bobsleds hell. We all remember the Izetta. They helped build one of the micro cars for the world, but they originally got their start out with airplanes. Peugeot, who could date themselves back as being the oldest car company in the entire world, going all the way back to the 1700s, built pepper mills, yeah, and they got back into them in the 20th century. They decided to dig back into their past and bring something for the new generation. It was an interesting thought, but they actually made them.

Unlike seeing all those Ferrari branded things, Ferrari doesn't actually make a lot of those things that you see, like the bags, the desks, the little mini cars. No, that's branded by them. That's branded by them. Bugatti does that as well. Bugatti did build something, though. They built the Autorail, a city train for France. It was designed, engineered and built by Bugatti, but it was built in the early days of Bugatti, when they actually made money Before their fallout in the 1950s. They wanted to make money. Hell, doing a little research, going back through DeLorean. DeLorean attempted to save themselves even before they started dying out by gaining a bus contract to build city buses for Great Britain. Yeah, DeLorean even has a working copy of the city bus that they were going to build. It was never built, but they were going to go from these sports cars to a city bus.

Well, could be a little different. You'd be like Audi who built the r18 office chair. That was an interesting one, but the most interesting one that I've ever found while researching the automobile industry has got to be from Volkswagen. If you didn't know this, like Volkswagen, one of the biggest car companies in the world, when you think of Volkswagen you think of cars in general. One of the first things that might come to mind is the Volkswagen Beetle, a car commissioned by somebody that was so evil towards the world Well, not to the world, but to a select group of people and started World War II, helped develop the people's car, Volkswagen Beetle. Well, technically it was for Nan Piers, the man behind Porsche automobiles, even though his son got it off the ground. He was really the person behind the Volkswagen Beetle and the Type 2. But Volkswagen's greatest creation and something they've won not just awards in Germany or Europe but across the globe Volkswagen is one of the largest producers of currywurst in Germany.

It originally got started by development of making food for their people at the production facilities. They found that if they fed them well, their employees would work better and all of their employees really liked currywurst. So, Volkswagen started playing around with it and they developed this amazing formula that turned into one of the greatest recipes for currywurst in the world. I can't buy it in my home country. I wish I could but it's literally labeled as Volkswagen with the actual Volkswagen logo on it. You're in a grocery store and there's a Volkswagen food sitting in front of you. It's one of the most interesting things. Like thinking about all the other stuff, but robots and boat motors and even moon rovers they're all something that's tied into the automotive industry with electronics and motors, but currywurst this is completely different. Like thinking about BMW and bobsleds and kind of weird. But they do bend and form sheet metal. Gm with frigid air, making refrigerators, Peugeot and their pepper mill was a little weird, but when you learn their history, where they came from, it's not so weird. But Volkswagen and the currywurst winning tons awards. They're one of the largest producers of it in all of Germany.

But one of the last points we have here is something that's new coming from car companies, and actually car companies are not the ones building it per se, but they're lending their names to it and they're using their engineering departments to develop them. Porsche, Mercedes Benz, Pagani and Bugatti have all developed high-end condos in the city of Miami, all tailored to what their consumers' needs are. They want to make a place for people to live which is designed around them and their car an interesting aspect but really high-end. Well, these people are already buying high-end cars and they're buying all the luxury features that come with it. They're buying all the luxury features that come with it. They're buying bags and luggage. They're buying clothing and mugs All of this stuff with your brand name on it. Well, they might as well live in a building branded towards you as well. Right, yeah, it's like with that. Where do you go from there? Where do these companies build all of these interesting things?

Well, throughout the history, some of these products were made through acquisitions and the companies just decided to keep it on as a separate division owned by a major corporation General Motors with Frigidaire. Some were acquired through specific purposes General Motors taking over a train manufacturer to build its own trains and consumer electronics. Now, World War II changed the landscape for everything, with manufacturers shifted towards the war effort, with little sales at home, with everything else, most automobile companies decided to get into building for the war effort, just to keep themselves above water. But after that, well, the world was your oyster. Some of these companies had a vested interest in building some of these things. Porsche, after helping develop Volkswagen and the beetle to make his own product. He built the tractor for his own personal use, same with Chrysler and his boat. Hell. Edsel Ford commissioned the Lincoln Continental for himself. So about personal use?

Some of these products were made to help their community. Toyota building houses to help house people you have to remember, in a lot of places in Japan, like there's Toyota City, were developed for all the people working at the plant. These companies built these small little towns. Hell, I live in a city that's full of places like that, each and every mine. The mining company built the town around it. Hell, some of them even lend their name to the town. So, Toyota building houses for the people. Some of them were contract work. Like Lamborghini, with their truck they tried to win a military contract. General Motors helped put people on the moon. Some of these products were a little weird, but they were developed by a need for something else. Saab was born out of a manufactured facility that had no use anymore. Well, people have use for cars and our country needs to get on wheels. There you go, and some of these products were made to help support the employees themselves. Volkswagen's Currywurst was made to help improve the lives of the employees at work and today it's become something even bigger than the car company itself.

Car companies have made all kinds of astounding things. The coolest things I ever see every time I go to a car show are General Motors buses and motorhomes. GMC Now get it. They had transports and dump trucks, just like Ford, but motorhomes and buses, yeah, they all got into it. They all tried to branch out and get into every possible market that they can develop products for. Hey, when the world is buying anything, it can get its hands on and the markets are just growing substantially, everybody's willing to take a chance on making something.

Will it survive through the decades? Not a lot of these have actually survived. Ford doesn't build B-24 Liberator bombers anymore and General Motors doesn't make a motorhome, but Volkswagen still makes its currywurst and Toyota is a major collaboration with the Japanese Space Agency. So, some of them will stay on longer and some of them are just to make extra money during growth periods. There's a lot out there and a lot of things that will surprise you about what our companies have made over the years. But, like I said in the beginning, the Mercury Outboard was never part of Ford at all. It's its own company, but its name was made to play off of the reputable Ford Motor Company division because Mercury Cars was big for that time when Mercury Outboards came out. So, yes, some of these are amazing products and some of them you want to go out and actually see them now.

But for that, take a stop by the website and see some of these amazing products that car companies from around the globe have made. Stop by the website, read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings, go to the Corporate Links website page big or small, we have them all car companies from around the globe and after that send us a comment, send us a like and follow us on any of the major social feeds or streaming sites that you found the AutoLooks podcast on. Tell us about all the other products that car companies have made. How we can't get into every single little thing or this episode will be hours long Because, trust me, there are tons and tons of different products out there that automobile companies have made or gotten into or even been part of the development of from around the globe. Send us your comments and tell us about all your different stories.

We love to hear from all of our listeners. Send us an email over email at AutoLooks.net, or go to the website. Send a comment right on this podcast from the AutoLooks.net Podcast and, like I said, after that, stop by the website. Send a comment right on this podcast from the AutoLooks.net podcast and, like I said, after that, stop by the website. Read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings. Go to the corporate links website page. Big or small, we have them all car companies from around the globe.

The AutoLooks podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by Podbean.com. If you'd like to get in touch, us send us an email over at email at AutoLooks.net. So, after you've told us your story, after you've checked out the website, just remember that the AutoLooks podcast is here with new episodes every week from every major streaming site that you can find the AutoLooks podcast on, from iTunes to Spotify to even Amazon Music. We are there and, like we always say, click the like button on the bottom if you want to hear more from the AutoLooks dot net podcast. So, like for myself, Everett Jay, the entire crew at the Ecomm Entertainment Group and Podbean.com, strap yourself in for this one fun wild ride that these amazing oddity products from car companies are going to take us on. Thank you,

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