The Honda Motor Company, has two brands, the main one is Honda and the luxury cars in North American are branded Acura. Acura is only a brand name for the Honda Motor Company, not anything more.as Japanese cars become more popular in the US as a economy car, Honda feared that no one would pay top dollar for a Luxury Car with Honda written on it, so in North America, Honda came out with Acura. soon after, Toyota with Lexus, and Nissan with Infiniti. Outside of North America, there is no Acura branding, the cars wear Honda branding. it is not quite the same thing as owning a company, as the way VW owns Audi, but it similar.