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AUDI HISTORY
You can trace Audi back to 1899 and August Horch. The first Horch automobile was produced in 1901 in Zwickau. In 1909, Horch was forced out of the company he had founded, he then continued to use the Horch brand in a new company he started in Zwickau. His former partners sued Horch, for trademark infringement and won. August Horch was forced choose a new name, rather than use his family name, for his new car business. Horch immediately called a meeting to think of a new company name at the apartment of Franz Fikentscher. The story goes that during this meeting Franz's son was in the room studying Latin, and it was he who made the suggestion of "Audi". "Horch!" in German means "Hark!" which is "Audi" in Latin. This suggestion was met with much enthusiasm, and so Audi began…
In 1932 Audi merged with Horch, DKW and Wanderer to form Auto Union.
The Audi emblem is four overlapping rings that represent the Auto Union, and was first used by the Auto Union before World War II. The four rings represent the four companies that came together to form the Auto Union. The badge was only used by Auto Union on racing cars whilst each of the member companies continued with their own branding.
In 1958 an 87% per cent share of Auto Union was acquired by Daimler-Benz and in the next year a complete 100%. In 1964 Volkswagen bought the factory in Ingolstadt and the brands of the Auto Union.
In 1969, Auto Union merged with NSU, which in the 1950s had been the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles but had moved on to produce small cars. NSU then focused on new rotary engines and in 1967, the new NSU Ro 80 was well ahead of its time in technical details such as aerodynamics, light weight, and safety, however problems with the rotary engines put an end to the independence of NSU.
Following this Audi emerged as a separate brand for the first time in almost 40 years, and in the 1970 model year Volkswagen introduced the Audi brand to the United States.
The Audi image at this time was a conservative one, and so developed the four-wheel drive technology in Volkswagen's Iltis military vehicle for an Audi performance car. Introduced in 1980, this performance car was named the "Quattro". All of these vehicles were hand-built by a single team, and consequently few were ever produced but the model was a great success in rallying. It was the succession of wins enjoyed by the Quattro in rallying that proved the viability of all-wheel drive racecars, and the Audi name became associated with advances in automotive technology.
Audi's German tagline "Vorsprung durch Technik" translated means "Advancement Through Technology", implying advantage due to superior technology. (The American version of the tagline is "Truth in Engineering".)
In 1985, the company’s offical name was made simply "Audi AG" due to the Auto Union and NSU brands being obsolete.
CURRENT AUDI MODELS
Audi A3
Audi A4
Audi A5
Audi A6
Audi A8
Audi Q7
Audi Allroad Quattro
Audi RS4
Audi R8
Audi S3
Audi S4
Audi S5
Audi S6
Audi S8
Audi TT
