X-ray investigation of crystallographic texture and its correlation with rm value (Lankford coefficient) was performed on a representative set of industrial automotive steels of different grades. Though the majority of steels had the structure of polygonal ferrite with small fractions of pearlite in the hot rolled condition, steels with a more complex structure were also included in the study. For this set of steels, a linear dependency has been shown to hold between rm value and the logarithm of the ratio of volumes having orientations of {111} and {100} planes parallel to the sheet plane. It is proposed that the observed reduction of rm value with increasing carbon content in steel is caused by the dissolution of tertiary cementite during recrystallization annealing.