The Audi story
This week, we turn our sights to one of the three biggest luxury marques in the world. Audi is based in Ingolstadt, in Germany’s Bavaria region, and is a member of the Volkswagen Group.
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It was originally founded in November 1899 by August Horch in Cologne under the umbrella of three different enterprises – Horch and Audiwerke, DKW and Wanderer – together leading to the formation of the Auto Union in 1932.
The modern day Audi entity came into being in the 1960s when the Auto Union was acquired by VW from Daimler-Benz. The present-day logo of four interlinked rings represents each one of the four original companies in the Auto Union alliance.
In yet another example of childlike inspiration, the Audi name was derived in the most unusual circumstances.
For a variety of trademark reasons, August Horch was prohibited from using "Horch" as a trade name in his new car business, and he had called a meeting with close business friends (Paul and Franz Fikentscher) to agree the way forward and come up with a new name for the company.
During this meeting, Franz's son, who was quietly studying Latin in a corner of the room, overhead the adults discussing this problem and eventually suggested that they adopt the word “Audi” instead of Horch (audi being the imperative form of the verb “audire” in Latin, as opposed to Horch, which means “hark” or “hear” in German).
The idea was enthusiastically embraced and accepted by everyone attending the meeting, and in April 1910, Audiwerke AG Zwickau was legally registered as a corporate entity. August Horch left the Audiwerke in 1920 for a high position in the Ministry of Transport, but he was still involved with Audi as a member of the board of trustees.
In September 1921, Audi became the first German car manufacturer to launch a production car, the Audi Type K, with left-hand drive. Left-hand drive cars quickly spread and established dominance during the 1920s, because they provided a better view of oncoming traffic, making overtaking much safer.
In 1958, in response to pressure from their largest single shareholder, Daimler-Benz took an 87 per cent holding in the Auto Union, eventually increasing it to a full 100 per cent holding in 1959. Daimler’s sudden decision to dispose of the Auto Union business in 1965 was based on its sustained lack of profitability.
Ironically, by the time they sold the business, it also included a large new factory and near production-ready modern four-stroke engine, which would enable the Auto Union business, under a new owner, to embark on a period of profitable growth.
By 1966, Volkswagen had acquired the Auto Union in full, and they began using the spare capacity of the Ingolstadt plant to assemble an additional 60,000 Volkswagen Beetles per year.
At the outset, Volkswagen was hostile to the idea of Auto Union as a standalone entity producing its own models, since they had acquired the company merely to boost their own production capacity through the Ingolstadt assembly plant.
VW executives had even ordered that the Auto Union name and flags bearing the four rings be removed from the factory buildings, and the then VW chief Heinz Nordhoff explicitly forbade Auto Union from any further product development.
Fearing that the Volkswagen had no long term ambition for the Audi brand, Auto Union engineers under the leadership of Ludwig Kraus developed the first Audi 100 in secret, without Nordhoff's knowledge.
When presented with a finished prototype, however, Nordhoff was so impressed that he quickly authorised the car for production, which was launched in 1968 and became a huge success. With this, the resurrection of the Audi brand was now complete.
For a long time, Audi's slogan had been Vorsprung durch Technik, meaning “Advancement through Technology”, but since 2007, this has been modified to “Truth in Engineering”.
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