The Audi Guide

German sport luxury brand Audi has played a robust role in helping to shape consumer tastes and influence the complete ECU touring market. For just about one hundred years, the Audi brand has been synonymous with manufacturing high quality, trustworthy, and well engineered cars. An wierd start nearly scuttled the corporation’s plans, yet today Audi has risen above trouble and is manufacturing vehicles that are world respected in quality and engineering.

August Horch set up Horch car in Cologne, Germany in 1899, and started producing cars in 1901 which featured a horizontal engine manufacturing upwards of 5 horsepower. Demand for these models propelled Horch to expand production and move to a larger manufacturing facility where a newer, more powerful model cranking out a then-amazing ten hp was released.

By 1910, Horch himself was booted out of the company that sported his name so he set up shop elsewhere and started to sell cars under the Audi moniker. Originally, Horch tried to use his folks name, but German courts ruled against him thus the Audi name was chosen instead. In German, Horch means “hark” and the word “audi” is the Latin translation of horch/hark. So, though he could legally no longer use his family name, the Latinized version of the same won out. Guess which name is understood today?

In between a couple devastating world wars, the modern Audi company began to take shape. Indeed, the “four rings” brand of the company represents the union of four distinct German automotive manufacturers under the auspices of Audi. Yes, you guessed it: the Horch company that originally booted Mr. Horch was absorbed by Audi and makes up one of the 4 rings. August Horch lived to see that day, but he also witnessed the dismantling of the company following the end of the second world war.

Reparations was the rallying cry when World War Two stopped, so thus the Soviet Union who was occupying the eastern portion of Germany in the postwar age, took the company, took all of its assets, and by August 1948 the company no longer existed. One year later thanks to state loans and Marshall plan assistance, a resurrected Audi was back on the scene producing a delivery truck and a motorcycle. Continuous growth throughout the 1950s highlighted by Daimler’s purchase of the company in 1958 fueled further enlargement. In 1964, the Volkswagen group acquired Audi from Daimler and to this day Audi remains a major part of the Volkswagen establishment.

By the late 1960s, Audi started what many consider to be its historic run to the apex of automotive excellence. New models were developed several of which were also marketed as Volkswagen models for that time. In 1980, Audi shook the automotive world to its foundation when it released its Quattro sports car, a vehicle with full time all wheel drive and a turbocharged engine. Right away , the Quattro propelled the Audi name to the apex of the race automobile world when the vehicle began to win race upon race. Undeniably, the Quattro was such a runaway hit that the model was banned from some races for having an “unfair” technological advantage.

Throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, Audi started to produce further models including its first premium model, the Audi V8 in 1988. Sporting a 3.6L 32-valve V8 engine, the Audi V8 featured full time all wheel drive and a four speed electronically controlled automated transmission. This model was a big exit from earlier Audis and set the brand on a collision course with Mercedes and BMW, Germany’s two other luxury brands in a bid for car supremacy.

Today, Audi continues to expand and compete against all of the top luxury brands in the world. New technology including its Audi Space Frame all-aluminum body - renowned for its rigidity and improved crashworthiness - are among the highlights of a brand that doesn’t settle for second choice. From sedans to sport coupes to an all new SUV, Audi has a model that competes against the likes of Lexus, Mercedes, Cadillac, Infiniti, and BMW its chief competitors.

That “hark” sound you hear is both the name of a company and the awareness the brand deserves in a sea of able premium models produced by Germany’s esteemed Volkswagen Group. Yes, Audi has weathered several hurricanes and the company appears stood to keep on its drive forward thanks to its many inventions and continued top quality.

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