Audi – Dr August Horch had a big argument with his fellow directors, which upset
him so much, that he walked out of his own Horch Car Factory in 1909 to start a new
factory nearby. He chose the Latin translation of his name AUDI as the name for his
new car. In 1911 his son won the Austrian Alpen Rally with this new car with the
powerful 3564cc engine. This win created a lot of positive publicity for them, so they
named this car the “Alpensieger”.
They continued to build large luxury cars, mostly with six cylinder engines. However,
with the difficult economic conditions the sales of large and expensive cars slowed
quite dramatically, which forced Horch to accept a take-over offer from Rasmussen
who was looking for additional production facilities for his popular DKW’s. With the
acquisition of Audi, Rasmussen formed the Auto Union Group. After the war the
production of DKW cars was resumed, but no Audi’s were built.
Volkswagen acquired Auto Union in 1965 and immediately re-launched Audi by
replacing the DKW two stroke engine with a four stroke engine they obtained from
Mercedes. Volkswagen also adopted the advanced DKW front wheel technology
on all the Volkswagen products. Volkswagen also made use of the proven DKW
four-wheel drive technology under the new name quarto, which became a huge
success for them. Audi is today one of the top premium brands and is probably the
most successful brand on the Chinese market.
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