There are some situations it makes sense to have more than one brand, known in the automotive world as a marque.

For example, using the same marque for cheap vehicles that you use on luxury vehicles will reduce the marque’s luxury image. In turn, that will make it more difficult for you to sell luxury vehicles.

The same idea holds with sports cars. You probably shouldn’t sell supercars or fund racing teams with the same marque you sell minivans if you’re trying to increase your racing image.

With that in mind, you should separate luxury and sports car marques from your general consumer vehicles. You should also separate your high-quality vehicles from your low-quality vehicles and so forth unless your goal is to raise the image ratings of your general consumer and lower quality cars at the expense of your other design’s sales.

To better control production or tailor designs closer to their market, you may also want to separate your company regionally. The best way to do that is with separate marques, especially if you’re using the Autoproduction system.

In another situation, you might get a chance to purchase one of your competitors. In which case, it makes sense to keep their marque and infrastructure around.

It is a wise idea to offer similar models to consumers. For every additional minor variation of a design you sell, you take more sales from your competitors than you do from yourself.

Multiple marques is a good way to do this. See the Trims video tutorial for a more detailed explanation of this concept.

There are two ways you can get additional marques. You can purchase an existing company or marque. Or you can create one from scratch.

Both ways are in the Stock Broker window.

In GearCity, you can only purchase publically traded companies.

To purchase a company, select them from the Stocklist. Then click the “Acquisition” button.

When you purchase a company, what you are doing is purchasing all shares from other owners. If you own shares, you won’t have to re-purchase what you own.

The game displays the number of shares you need to buy, the price you can get them, and the total costs to buy the company.

Clicking the Acquire Company button will send your offer to the company. The company will then vote if they approve the buy-out offer. 

If you own 50% of the company, the game will automatically approve the buyout offer.

When you purchase another company, you receive all their vehicle designs, component designs, inventories, marques, factories, and branches. You do not get their contracts or licensed designs. The game discontinues any racing vehicles automatically, and it sells any factories or branches if you already operate one in the city.

Purchasing a company allows you to expand more rapidly than the game allows on harder difficulty levels. Also, depending on the conditions of the company or the global economy, you can get factories and designs cheaper by buying out a company.

Finally, buying out a company reduces competition.

If you don’t want to buy the company as a whole, you can purchase a marque from a company.

The stock window displays the number of marques a company owns on the information page.

To view the marque, select the company, then click the Marques button.

The list will update with all marques of the company. Select the marque you’re interested in, and the game will display the information about the marque and the purchase price.

If you wish to buy the marque, click the Acquire Marque button.

Purchasing a marque from another company will grant you that marque, all their vehicle and component designs, and any factories or branches that marque owns. You do not get their contracts or licensed designs. The game discontinues any racing vehicles automatically, and it sells any factories or branches if you already operate one in the city.

Just like buying a full company, buying an existing marque is a good idea if you want a marque with specific image ratings, expand to new branches and factories rapidly, or want extra vehicle designs from an already established marque.

What if you wanted to start a marque from scratch?

Select your company from the Stock Broker window. And then click the Marque button.

The window now lists all your marques. Click the “New Marque” button to create a new marque.

The cost to make the new marque is here. The more marques you have, the more expensive it is to create a new one. Also, the costs go up every year.

Fill out the information in the window and then hit Create.

The new marque should appear on the list. If you select it, you’ll see several marque options.

A marque is part of your company. They operate under your direction. But what if you wanted the marque to operate independently?

This situation is where you’ll use either the Spin-off or Create Wholly Owned Subsidiary functions.

Both actions turn your marque into an independent company, managed by the AI. They will have access to your designs, and you will have access to their designs. But they have their own factories and branches, and you do not control what they do or build.

With a Spin-off, your shareholders receive an equal value of the marque as they own of your company.

If you create a Wholly Owned Subsidiary, then your company will own 100% of the marque, regardless of your shareholders.

If you are not a publically traded company, then the Spin-off option is the same as creating a Wholly Owned Subsidiary.

When creating a subsidiary, you have the option to include the marque’s factory and branches. The marque will take, at a minimum, some money, and their designs when you spin them off.

If you own over 50% of the spin-off, you can easily reacquire them. It is free to do so if you own 100% of the company.

What is the purpose of spinning off marques? If you find managing a marque cumbersome, you can always let the AI do it for you.

You extract income from the company by setting dividend payments in the stock system. If it is a wholly-owned subsidiary, there is no limit to the number of dividends you can set.

But know that dividend payouts will slow the company’s growth. And large dividend payouts can even kill the subsidiary.

The Marque panels of the Stock Broker window also gives you the option to sell the marque. If you do this, another company in the game or an investment firm will make an offer to buy the marque.

Finally, you can discontinue a marque. By discontinuing a marque, the game will discontinue all the marque’s designs. You can also include factories and branches.

This action is a great option if you no longer want a marque around.

You can also restore a discontinued marque by checking the “Show Discontinued Marques” button, selecting a discontinued marque, and then hitting the Restore Marque button.

Restoring a marque will not bring back the marque’s designs, factories or branches.

There are no costs to discontinuing or restoring a marque. Players frequently use this option to purge the designs of an AI company while keeping the marque active.

In summation, the marque system is a great way to separate your vehicle designs to maximize image ratings. You can also use it to separate regional designs and production. It can also be a good way to organize the quality levels of your trims.

The marque system is the basis of brand ownership in the game. Whether or not you use it is your own choice.