Five places where the badges were drawn and the boardrooms still sit — from a river city that lent an industry its nickname to a Japanese town that gave up its own name for a company's.
General Motors was the world's largest carmaker for 77 consecutive years, from 1931 to 2007, and still runs from downtown — it moved in January 2026 out of the riverfront Renaissance Center and up Woodward Avenue into the new tower on the old Hudson's department-store site.
Two great head offices sit inside one city: Mercedes-Benz Group at Untertürkheim and Porsche at Zuffenhausen, each with its own museum. The rearing black horse at the centre of the Porsche crest is the city's own coat of arms, from the ducal stud farm — Stuotgarten — that gave the place its name.
Fiat — Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino — was founded here in 1899. Its Lingotto plant sent finished cars up a spiral ramp to a banked test track on the roof — the setting for the Mini chase in 'The Italian Job'.
Toyota Motor Corporation's head office stands at 1 Toyota-cho. The city was Koromo until it renamed itself on 1 January 1959 in honour of its biggest employer, and the company's tax payments long made it one of the richest municipalities in Japan.
Volvo built its first car here on 14 April 1927, rolling it out of a workshop on the island of Hisingen. Volvo Cars still has its head office at Torslanda in the city, with the truck-building Volvo Group as its neighbour.
Think you'd have found them? Play today's expedition, or replay this one from the archive.