Audi is identified with the prestige of Germany for long years. The German sport luxury brand has played a big role in shaping the consumer tastes and influences the entire European touring market for past few decades. For nearly 100 years, the Audi brand has been synonymous of high quality production, reliability, and well engineered vehicles. From a humble beginning, the company has risen above adversity and is producing cars that are world renowned in quality and engineering.

The history of Audi goes back to 1899, when, August Horch founded Horch Automotive in Cologne, Germany and began manufacturing cars in 1901. The company brought out cars featuring horizontal engine producing upwards of 5 horsepower. Heavy demand for these models propelled Horch to expand production and to move to a larger manufacturing facility where a newer, more powerful model cranking out a then-amazing 10 horsepower was released. Horch himself was booted out of the company in 1910 that sported his name so he set up shop elsewhere and began to sell cars under the Audi moniker. The term Audi was used by Horch as German courts opposed his move to use family name. In German, Horch means “hark” and the word “audi” is the Latin translation of horch/hark. He thus succeeded in using his Latinized version of the name which became popular in later years.

The Horch Company that originally booted Mr. Horch was absorbed by Audi and makes up one of the four rings. The end of Second World War witnessed the dismantling of the company following occupation of Soviet Union, who was occupying the eastern portion of Germany.  It appropriated the company, took all of its assets, and by August 1948 the company no longer existed. One year later a resurrected Audi was back on the scene producing a delivery van and a motorcycle. From that day, the company grew beyond the boundaries and emerged as the biggest player in the automobile market.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 25th, 2008 at 12:35 pm and is filed under Cars Audi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.