Does your car brand make a mountain bike ? If you think of car manufacturers producing bicycles and mountain bikes as the novelty, you are wrong. Car companies have been involved in the production and branding bikes for over 15 years. Sadly, with the very occasional exception, when they offer one, they do it all wrong.
29 inches wheels with the skinny tires and the frame of a trail bike, carbon frame with the low-end suspension fork, or a mix of high and low-quality groupset components that does not make any sense. In many cases, all these nonsense comes or at least used to come at the price of top range mountain bikes produced by established players of the MTB industry.
But why ? I find it hard to believe that people selling the most advanced technology can’t figure out how to assemble a decent mountain bike that it’s worth its money. Is it ignorance ? Do car companies think that just because bikes don’t use as advanced technology as in cars, they can sell it to anyone with a relatively eye-catching design ? Maybe it’s arrogance. They know very well what sells and what markets to pitch, and they assume that by simply adding their logo, they will find the poor noobs who are going to fall for it. Whether this is the case or not, we all know the noobs who’ve bought a shitty product for their logo.
But, maybe I’m overthinking and the auto companies are laughing and offer their bicycles as another logo-branded add-on sale like key rings or baseball cups. Here’s by no means an incomplete list of car companies that have made mountain bikes.