Blog Audi

Would you believe it if we told you that the name “Audi” was a suggestion from a child? It sure was. Back when August Horch owned the businesses, he was trying to come up with a name for the new car company because he was prohibited from using his own name as the car’s trade name. So he called up a meeting with some of his closest friends to discuss options and suggestions. These friends were Paul and Franz Fikentscher. It was rumored that the story goes as follows. While the men were talking, Franz’s son was playing outside close to where her father was having a meeting with Horch. The little boy kept trying to input his suggestion, but kept putting his head down in hesitation. When he finally mustered up the courage to talk to his father and his engineers, the son suggested that “audi” would be a better word to use than “horch,” which meant “hark” or “hear.” All of these ends up translating to the Latin “audi,” which means to hear.

The four rings

Audi’s four rings are representative of the merger of the four companies that made up Auto Union: Audi, Horch, DKW, and Wanderer. Auto Union used the same branding that we see in Audi cars today before World War II. However, the badge was only used on Auto Union racing cars. While that was, each of the four companies that merged together were using their own emblems on the cars they manufactured. You can see how big of a confusion that must’ve been, but remember that there were a lot fewer manufactured cars during that time, so the confusion would’ve been mild.

Left-hand drive

In September 1921, Audi introduced the Type K at the Berlin Motor Show. Up until this point, Audi only used pre-war designs on all its cars. The Type K was the first post-war design. It’s considered to be one of the most technically advanced cars of its time. It had top speeds of up to 95 km/h or 59 m/h. But the most important feature of this car that would make history was the fact that it was the first German car that introduced the left-hand drive. Being the first of its kind, it was a revolutionary feat. Eventually, due to its function and popularity, this feature became the standard in all cars from the 20s.

World War II

Wars are harsh for everyone, no matter what or when, and most companies during World War II had been affected by the war. It didn’t matter how big or successful the company was; it could still be susceptible to damages from war. The very thing happened to Audi during World War II. All the auto manufacturing plants, including Audi, were used in war and turned into production facilities for military hardware. Audi’s facilities became obvious targets for many allied forces, especially the Russians. Plants were severely bombed and damaged during the war. However, when the war was over, Audi was able to recuperate from the destruction that happened. They built on out again to continue manufacturing cars the way they did before the war happened.

Volkswagen ties

Many people think that Audi is its own entity. In many ways it is, as the company surely started that way. However, it is not a well-known fact that Volkswagen actually owns the luxury giant. You can actually say that Audi is the luxury brand of Volkswagen. Before Volkswagen, Audi was actually owned by Daimler-Benz, the same group that brings Mercedes Benz to the market. You can probably surmise from this, if you don’t know already, that all these cars come from the same list of German-made automobiles. It’s an impressive feat for the nation to have such an amazing array of cars that feature some of the best in automobile engineering and design. Volkswagen acquired Audi back in 1996, but since then, Audi has targeted the higher-end market. It has since been targeting the same market, but it can’t stop from appealing to the general population as well.