The monthly brand momentum tracker from The BRAKE Report. Fifty-one brands, five categories, one 30-day window. Explore the full interactive rankings at aftermarket.thebrakereport.com.
The seventh edition ends the streak everyone was watching. After two consecutive months exactly one point short, NRS Brakes takes #1 at 64. And it does so in the same month the methodology got stricter about what “aftermarket” means — which is why the brand it displaced is not this month’s Biggest Faller.
Two methodology changes, applied in public
Since May, the Media and Product categories have carried an aftermarket-relevance weighting: catalog releases and workshop programs at full weight, motorsport and OE news at half. Social and Digital did not. They scored raw brand reach — and that meant a brand could post nothing but Formula 1, Superbike and OE launches for a month and still carry the highest Social and Digital on the board.
Starting this edition, the same lens applies to all four activity categories. Social measures what a brand posts about the aftermarket — coverage announcements, installer and distributor content, product education, trade-show presence — with racing, OE and corporate content at half. Digital measures the aftermarket-facing web presence: application lookup, catalog tools, where-to-buy, and whether the content is fresh.
The visible effect is Brembo. BOLDIKA, its new six-piston caliper for heavy-duty pickups, was the most-covered brake story of August — and an OE-only one, launching on the Silverado EV with, by Brembo’s own account, no aftermarket application in the works. Combined with a corporate site and social feed that spent the window on Hyction, Superbike and F1, Brembo slides eight points to #4. That is a correction to how we were scoring plus an OE-heavy month, and we have deliberately kept it out of the Biggest Faller conversation.
The second change is smaller and closes a loop: trade coverage of the Power Rankings themselves no longer counts toward a brand’s Media score. A strong finish should not be able to generate the coverage that sustains it. Prior months stay locked as published.
#1: NRS Brakes, 64
NRS earned the top seat on the merits. The Galvanized Brakes Police Program launched August 20. A galvanization explainer followed August 27. The LinkedIn cadence of new part-number introductions never paused. It is the first time an Industry Partner has held #1 — and, per the new rule, the industry coverage of last month’s #2 finish contributed nothing to the score.
EBC Brakes lands at #2 with 62 on the busiest owned-channel month on the board: a weekly new-parts release, the August newsletter, two technical articles, a new global sales director in Martin Walder, and the SC Super Ceramic low-dust compound announced for the SEMA Show. Sponsorship carries zero scoring weight; two BRAKE Report articles in the window do.
Biggest Climber: DFC, ▲12 to #3
Dynamic Friction Company’s front and rear POLICE pads for the Ford Explorer Police Interceptor and Chevrolet Tahoe PPV/SSV earned AMECA Police Declaration of Conformity listing — documented evidence, tested against the OE police benchmark, that fleet purchasing groups can act on. DFC took it to Police Fleet Expo and The BRAKE Report covered it August 20, which is DFC’s first Editorial credit of the year and worth ten points on its own. Four Friction Friday coverage drops (Mazda CX-50, Lexus RX450h+, Nissan Armada, Rivian EDV 700) confirm the owned-channel cadence we started crediting last month. Roughly half the climb is the Editorial baseline switching on; the other half is product. Into the top three for the first time.
Three at 57
Brembo holds #4. AmeriBRAKES (Momentum USA) posts a fourth consecutive monthly release and its largest yet — 77 part numbers covering 44 million vehicles in operation across seven lines. One scoring note: the early-August trade pickups were of the July release, which was credited last month and is not counted twice. ATE (AUMOVIO) recovers ▲3 to #6 on the MK 100, described as ATE’s first complete ABS/ESP brake control system for the independent aftermarket, previewed alongside a battery-powered bleeder for AUMOVIO’s Automechanika Frankfurt debut. It is scored as a preview rather than a launch: the system ships at the show next week, and AUMOVIO’s €1 billion BMW agreement landed July 30, outside this window.
One to Watch: Hella, ▲29 to #12
HELLA launched commercial-vehicle brake pads worldwide for the first time — an initial 58 references for trucks, buses and trailers, all ECE R90 certified — on August 31. A 29-place jump deserves a plain explanation. Hella scored 32 last month. One launch moved Media, Product and Editorial off their floors, and ranks 13 through 44 sit inside a 19-point band where 23 brands are separated by eight points. An 18-point gain from down there is a 29-place jump. The score is 50, not 80. Next month tells us whether this is a program or a press release — and that is exactly what a momentum tracker is for.
Biggest Faller: Wagner, ▼5 to #15
May’s ES pad, rotor and bolt-kit expansion has fully aged out of the window and nothing followed it. ICER Brakes (▼5) and TRW (▼3) fell on the identical pattern. These are momentum readings on quiet cycles, not verdicts on the catalogs.
Akebono deserves a line here too: it was named Worldpac Supplier of the Year at STX 2026 — the highest of nine supplier honors — and still slid ▼5 to #10 on a content-light month. Active on LinkedIn, little else produced, and a plant holiday in the middle of the window.
The bottom of the table
StopTech debuts at #51 as a separate roster entry under Motorcar Parts of America, acquired alongside Centric Parts, and is scored on its own footprint with no halo. Centric Parts gets its first forward signal since the acquisition: MPA’s fiscal Q1 call reported “considerable customer interest” and a relaunch planned by fiscal year-end. Raybestos (Friction One) still awaits its first Q4 shipment. A federal judge converted First Brands Group to Chapter 7 liquidation on August 26 — two months after both brands were sold to their new owners.
The full rankings
The complete 51-brand table — expandable category breakdowns, heat badges, and the rolling archive back to March — lives at aftermarket.thebrakereport.com.
The Aftermarket Power Rankings measure roughly 30 days of publicly observable brand activity across Media, Social, Digital, Product, and Editorial — not company size, market share, or product quality. All four activity categories are now weighted by aftermarket relevance. Industry Partner and Sponsor designations carry zero scoring weight. The momentum is the point.
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