AP Racing a subsidiray of Brembo?

[1MORELAP]

Is that so? C&D article mentions that AP Racing is a subsidiary of Brembo. I am not really sure what would that mean and how would that matter, but would be interesting to know.

[wwjd15]

Yes. Brembo bought AP long time ago. but they work separately. It seems Brembo is on the street cars and AP more on the race cars.

[Jaypod]

Brembo owns AP Racing


edit - just saw the post above, after I posted.

[JAJ]

Originally Posted by wwjd15

Yes. Brembo bought AP long time ago. but they work separately. It seems Brembo is on the street cars and AP more on the race cars.

wwjd15 pretty much nailed it.

Brembo S.P.A (the corporate parent) owns some or all of 28 different companies, one of which is AP Racing Ltd. in Coventry, UK.

From a branding perspective, Brembo's core business is OEM brakes for automakers, so most of what they make isn't branded Brembo.

AP Racing, formerly Automotive Products, is focused on the professional racing market (F1, NASCAR, FIA GT, etc) with a sideline in aftermarket brakes. Brembo itself also has a very capable professional racing division, but it doesn't have the scale or the scope that AP Racing does.

[AP Racing - Chris_B]

Originally Posted by 1MORELAP

Is that so? C&D article mentions that AP Racing is a subsidiary of Brembo. I am not really sure what would that mean and how would that matter, but would be interesting to know.

The Brembo Group purchased AP Racing in 1999, yet each still operate separately today. Brembo's headquarters are in Italy and AP is in England.

Both compete against each other in nearly all global racing series, with some mildly applied rules for OE accounts. Brembo is better equipped to handle the larger production runs (like Porsche, Mercedes, Nissan, Hyundai, Ford, GM, etc.) with factories in many countries, while AP Racing is often better suited for more specialized, short-run manufacturers (Bugatti, McLaren, Koenigsegg, Lotus, Pagani, Spyker, GTA, etc.). As always, there are exceptions to this paradigm, often due to long established technical or business relationships.

All that said, Brembo has a much, much, much stronger marketing department, getting most of their OE accounts to run their name on the caliper faces. Hardly any AP Racing OE accounts openly advertise they use AP equipment, but it can be found out by looking a bit or reading a vehicle's technical specs. AP is basically a big building full of engineers who spend more time designing, tooling, purchasing, etc., with just one "marketing engineer" tasked to get the word out (in typically subtle British fashion) as well as update the catalog, tech sheets and the web site. No contest there!

Also, AP Racing is considered by most to the the leader in racing and high-performance clutch technology, an area where Brembo is not involved at all.

If you have any specific questions on the relationship between the two companies, please let me know and I will answer what I can.

Chris