Audi
Audi AG is a German automobile manufacturer that designs,
engineers, produces, markets and distributes luxury vehicles. Audi is a member
of the Volkswagen Group and has its roots at Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany.
Audi-branded vehicles are produced in nine production facilities worldwide.
The origins of the company are complex, going back to the
early 20th century and the initial enterprises (Horch and the Audiwerke)
founded by engineer August Horch; and two other manufacturers (DKW and
Wanderer), leading to the foundation of Auto Union in 1932. The modern era of
Audi essentially began in the 1960s when Auto Union was acquired by Volkswagen
from Daimler-Benz. After relaunching the Audi brand with the 1965 introduction
of the Audi F103 series, Volkswagen merged Auto Union with NSU Motorenwerke in
1969, thus creating the present day form of the company.
The company name is based on the Latin translation of the
surname of the founder, August Horch. "Horch", meaning
"listen" in German, becomes "audi" in Latin. The four rings
of the Audi logo each represent one of four car companies that banded together
to create Audi's predecessor company, Auto Union. Audi's slogan is Vorsprung
durch Technik, meaning "Being Ahead through Technology". However,
Audi USA had used the slogan "Truth in Engineering" from 2007 to
2016, and have not used the slogan since 2016.Audi, along with fellow German
marques BMW and Mercedes-Benz, is among the best-selling luxury automobile
brands in the world.
Our company offers the Audi compliance certificate for this
vehicle through our website.
Automobile company Wanderer was originally established in
1885, later becoming a branch of Audi AG. Another company, NSU, which also
later merged into Audi, was founded during this time, and later supplied the
chassis for Gottlieb Daimler's four-wheeler. On 14 November 1899, August Horch
(1868–1951) established the company A. Horch & Cie. in the Ehrenfeld
district of Cologne. In 1902, he moved with his company to Reichenbach im
Vogtland. On 10 May 1904, he founded the August Horch & Cie.
Motorwagenwerke AG, a joint-stock company in Zwickau (State of Saxony).
After troubles with Horch chief financial officer, August
Horch left Motorwagenwerke and founded in Zwickau on 16 July 1909, his second
company, the August Horch Automobilwerke GmbH. His former partners sued him for
trademark infringement. The German Reichsgericht (Supreme Court) in Leipzig,
eventually determined that the Horch brand belonged to his former company.
Since August Horch was prohibited from using
"Horch" as a trade name in his new car business, he called a meeting
with close business friends, Paul and Franz Fikentscher from Zwickau. At the
apartment of Franz Fikentscher, they discussed how to come up with a new name
for the company. During this meeting, Franz's son was quietly studying Latin in
a corner of the room. Several times he looked like he was on the verge of
saying something but would just swallow his words and continue working, until
he finally blurted out, "Father – audiatur et altera pars... wouldn't it
be a good idea to call it audi instead of horch?" "Horch!" in
German means "Hark!" or "hear", which is "Audi"
in the singular imperative form of "audire" – "to listen" –
in Latin. The idea was enthusiastically accepted by everyone attending the
meeting. On 25 April 1910 the Audi Automobilwerke GmbH Zwickau (from 1915 on
Audiwerke AG Zwickau) was entered in the company's register of Zwickau
registration court.
The COC Audi is
available for all Audi built by the European market.
In August 1928, Jørgen Rasmussen, the owner of
Dampf-Kraft-Wagen (DKW), acquired the majority of shares in Audiwerke AG. In
the same year, Rasmussen bought the remains of the U.S. automobile manufacturer
Rickenbacker, including the manufacturing equipment for eight-cylinder engines.
These engines were used in Audi Zwickau and Audi Dresden models that were launched
in 1929. At the same time, six-cylinder and four-cylinder (the "four"
with a Peugeot engine) models were manufactured. Audi cars of that era were
luxurious cars equipped with special bodywork.
In 1932, Audi merged with Horch, DKW, and Wanderer, to form
Auto Union AG, Chemnitz. It was during this period that the company offered the
Audi Front that became the first European car to combine a six-cylinder engine
with front-wheel drive. It used a powertrain shared with the Wanderer, but
turned 180-degrees, so that the drive shaft faced the front.
Before World War II, Auto Union used the four interlinked
rings that make up the Audi badge today, representing these four brands.
However, this badge was used only on Auto Union racing cars in that period
while the member companies used their own names and emblems. The technological
development became more and more concentrated and some Audi models were
propelled by Horch or Wanderer built engines.
Reflecting the economic pressures of the time, Auto Union
concentrated increasingly on smaller cars through the 1930s, so that by 1938
the company's DKW brand accounted for 17.9% of the German car market, while
Audi held only 0.1%. After the final few Audis were delivered in 1939 the
"Audi" name disappeared completely from the new car market for more
than two decades.
Like most German manufacturing, at the onset of World War II
the Auto Union plants were retooled for military production, and were a target
for allied bombing during the war which left them damaged.
Overrun by the Soviet Army in 1945, on the orders of the
Soviet Union military administration the factories were dismantled as part of
war reparations. Following this, the company's entire assets were expropriated
without compensation. On 17 August 1948, Auto Union AG of Chemnitz was deleted
from the commercial register. These actions had the effect of liquidating
Germany's Auto Union AG. The remains of the Audi plant of Zwickau became the
VEB (for "People Owned Enterprise") Automobilwerk Zwickau or AWZ (in English: Automobile Works
Zwickau).
With no prospect of continuing production in
Soviet-controlled East Germany, Auto Union executives began the process of
relocating what was left of the company to West Germany. A site was chosen in
Ingolstadt, Bavaria, to start a spare parts operation in late 1945, which would
eventually serve as the headquarters of the reformed Auto Union in 1949.
The former Audi factory in Zwickau restarted assembly of the
pre-war-models in 1949. These DKW models were renamed to IFA F8 and IFA F9 and
were similar to the West German versions. West and East German models were
equipped with the traditional and renowned DKW two-stroke engines. The Zwickau
plant manufactured the infamous Trabant until 1991, when it came under
Volkswagen control—effectively bringing it under the same umbrella as Audi
since 1945.
What do i need to get my COC Audi? Information available on
our website.
The new merged company was
incorporated on 1 January 1969 and was known as Audi NSU Auto Union AG, with
its headquarters at NSU's Neckarsulm plant, and saw the emergence of Audi as a
separate brand for the first time since the pre-war era. Volkswagen introduced
the Audi brand to the United States for the 1970 model year. That same year,
the mid-sized car that NSU had been working on, the K70, originally intended to
slot between the rear-engined Prinz models and the futuristic NSU Ro 80, was
instead launched as a Volkswagen.
After the launch of the Audi 100
of 1968, the Audi 80/Fox (which formed the basis for the 1973 Volkswagen
Passat) followed in 1972 and the Audi 50 (later rebadged as the Volkswagen
Polo) in 1974. The Audi 50 was a seminal design because it was the first
incarnation of the Golf/Polo concept, one that led to a hugely successful world
car. Ultimately, the Audi 80 and 100 (progenitors of the A4 and A6,
respectively) became the company's biggest sellers, whilst little investment
was made in the fading NSU range; the Prinz models were dropped in 1973 whilst
the fatally flawed NSU Ro80 went out of production in 1977, spelling the
effective end of the NSU brand. Production of the Audi 100 had been steadily
moved from Ingolstadt to Neckarsulm as the 1970s had progressed, any by the
appearance of the second generation C2 version in 1976, all production was now
at the former NSU plant. Neckarsulm from that point onward would produce Audi's
higher end models.