Best Unusual Things Made By Companies From Another Industry?

M2Pilot said:

Saginaw & GM made M1 Carbines.  Lots of auto manufacturers made lots of arms, etc. during WWII

Look up the products that Guide Lamp (a GM company) made during the war.  It's extensive.

...OK not that extensive.  But extensive for a car product company

gearheadmb said:

International Harvester used to make one helluva freezer.

Didn't they have a whole line of home appliances? IIRC they were trying to serve the rural market they already had access to via farming equipment. 

And let's not forget the Kelvinator.

I just remembered, Jeep has an entire line of baby strollers. I remember seeing these ones specifically when I was little, probably because they had the name of a car on the side and 5 year old me thought that was cool.

In reply to AMiataCalledSteve :

I'm pretty sure that's just a licensing deal.  Chrysler (by whatever corporate conglomerate name they use this week) isn't manufacturing anything there.

Didn't Ford make and sell charcoal or something like that way back when?  I thought that was what eventually became Kingsford.

In reply to wae :

Ah you're right, after looking it appears they are made by kolcraft.

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

Keith Tanner said:

I have a couple of Yamaha musical instruments, and even they don't have anything in common - one's a DX7 synth, the other is a tenor saxophone.

My mother used to have a Yamaha piano -- we would joke about her upgrading it to a Suzuki. :)

I have a Black-and-Decker kitchen hand mixer.  On the surface it's an odd branding, but the guts of a mixer and a drill aren't really that different.

 

Yamaha also makes industrial robotics and automation equipment

As a result of my weird career path I've been certified to work on Yamaha snowmobiles, ATVs, motorcycles, lawn tractors, generators and robotics.  As a result of being married to a musician I've also worked on Yamaha musical instruments.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Tesla's solar roof tiles are also pretty slick. I'm sure they make a lot of HOAs happy that are against the aesthetics of attached solar panels

Same company:

Hurst makes these:


And they also make these:



I think the Jaws of Life Hurst has spun off from Hurst Performance since they were first made. 

In reply to SEADave :

I had no idea...  I always just assumed it was two different guys with the same last name.  That's fascinating!

In reply to SEADave :

In a similar vein, Bridgestone plays golf and goes to the track, too.

In 1952 GM teamed up with a surgeon from Detroit to make the first artificial heart for use in open heart surgery.

From a different angle, Westinghouse made some cars at the beginning of the 20th century. And now they basically only make nuclear reactors, with the name licensed to a bunch of other electronic items.

This is good thread.

Didn't Bridgestone also do motorcycles?

Also, I love all things Yamaha. I had a bass I loved, a motorcycle, too. They developed the 4AGE head (2ZZGE, too, if I'm not mistaken).

What about  Hobart?

In reply to wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) :

Bridgestone did bicycles.  Sold for years in Japan but only briefly, like mid 80's to mid 90's in the US.  They were pretty cutting edge and well repsected in the US for that period.  They were early into the game of MTB.   This is a picture of my own 1993 Bridgestone MB-4 

Ironically, they did not make the tires for their US bikes.  

For decades Rolls Royce has made jet engines for some of the most popular business jets on the market, and has an even larger military jet engine and ship engine business.

https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and-services/defence/aerospace.aspx

Not quite the same company anymore as Hitachi Construction Machinery was spun off on its own a long time ago but still funny and even if the Hitachi name isn't on the "personal massager" anymore they're still the ones making them (along with Nuclear power plants etc.).

Datsun310Guy said:

My dad bought an avacado green refrigerator in 1970 that finally died in 2010.  Oddly GM made a decent fridge.  
 

We still have a GM built Frigidaire refrigerator up at the cottage humming away.

The McLaughlin Brothers in Canada in the teens bought rolling chassis from Buick to build McLaughlin Buicks in Canada. A high end car for the time.

One brother kept the car company going.

The other brother started the company that made Canada Dry ginger ale.

In reply to John Welsh :

I'd forgotten about the Bridgestone mountain bikes. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

The Bridgestone bikes still have a cult following.  The high end models still command high prices.  The highest models are O (pronounced zip), 1, or 2 models.  They made through 6 as their lowest spec.   Ebay samples

The Bridgestone bike catalogs, especially the last years of '91-'94 read more like a biking magazine and training manual than they do a sales brochure.  Like 66 pages for 1993 and 75 pages for 1994 (the final year in the US.) Catalogs

Also a huge fan of Yamaha things, especially their musical instruments. I have had this Yamaha drum kit since 1995, and it been on many gigs and lived in many places. Still sounds great, and it's held up extremely well to me hitting it with sticks all these years. Also have a 1980's entry-level keyboard of theirs (a Porta-Sound PSS-560), and that's also still kicking and sounds cool. Their guitars are also really great, especially their bass guitars. Even the cheapo stuff is high quality!

My dad had a few of their motorcycles over the years, and he loved those as well. 

In reply to adam525i :

Hitachi makes good stuff across all its companies.