You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

[Lee Stewart]

[Lee Stewart]

Raise you hand if you built one of these as a kid (Lee's hand is up)

This is the current version. Costs about $50:

[Lee Stewart]

Eldorado Station Wagon concept… circa 1972

[Lee Stewart]

In 1951, Ford Aerospace secured a US Navy contract for the engineering and manufacturing of parts required to build the AIM-9 Sidewinder series of air-to-air missiles. The American firm initially produced the guidance and control sections of the weapon while helping with logistics. The AIM-9 missile was widely used during the Vietnam War and dozens of countries still employ its various evolutions. Ford sold the business in 1990 and it’s now part of Lockheed Martin.

[Lee Stewart]

Hyundai can sell you a Santa Fe or build a train capable of taking you and hundreds of other passengers to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The company’s Rotem division designs and manufactures light rail vehicles, high-speed trains, diesel-electric locomotives and subway cars.

[Lee Stewart]

Mitsubishi’s car-building arm shares its name and logo with numerous other entities. The group’s areas of expertise include mining, building cruise ships, selling real estate, making electronic toll collection systems, designing high-speed trains, refining oil, and banking. Having built the fearsome Zero fighter during World War 2, it now builds Japanese versions of the F-15, F-16 (pictured) and F-35 fighters under license from US aerospace groups Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

[Lee Stewart]

Jaguar and Land Rover live under the same roof as the Indian Hotels Company. Owned by Tata, the group entered the world of luxury hotels in 1903 when it opened a five-star property in Mumbai named Taj Mahal Palace (pictured). It’s grown to become one of the largest hotel groups in Asia.

[Lee Stewart]

Peugeot made its first hand tools in 1810, well before there was an automotive industry for it to leap into. The company continues to sell tools today including drills, drill bits, saws, grinding machines and vice grips. The Peugeot family sold the rights to the tool-making business in 2012 to a French company named MPO.

[Lee Stewart]

By Toyota’s own account, it “builds 21st century comfort and luxury houses in Japan.” The Japanese auto-maker began dabbling in the housing market in 1975. Today, it offers three different types of pre-fabricated houses that take as little as 45 days to build and come with a 60-year warranty.

[Lee Stewart]

In 1990 Toyota saw an opportunity to apply its automotive expertise to the marine sector, and today offers a range of craft for the well-heeled. Its most powerful, the Ponam 35 (pictured), is propelled by two 4.5-litre V8 diesel engines more commonly found in the Land Cruiser SUV. They deliver a combined 750hp of power and a top speed of around 30 knots (35mph), and is 11.95m long (39 feet). They sell for around US$800,000 each, and can carry 12 people.

Unlike Toyota’s land-based vehicles, this particular Toyota club is an exclusive one – the company only builds 15 or so of these boats a year, though the company also makes slightly smaller and cheaper vessels.