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A Brief history of Audi

Audi's history can be traced back over one hundred years, when in 1899, a German engineer called August Horch founded a company called A. Horch & Cie. at the age of 32 in Cologne. Two years later he produced his first car and the foundations of what were to become Audi had been laid.

1909 saw Horch fall out with the board and as a result he began a new car company. Because he could not use his own name due to the original company, he used the latin translation of Hark (Horch) which happens to be “Audi”. The outbreak of the First World War resulted in the company being used to manufacture military vehicles, this and the following depression after the war became too much for August Horch and in 1920 he left the management of Audi.

Audi struggled on for the next decade, but eventually realised that in order to keep going they had to merge with other manufacturers. So in 1932 four small carmakers, Audi, Horch, Wanderer and DKW formed the Auto Union, the logo of which was four linked rings, the same as is still used to this day. The major move forward for Audi came in 1964 when Volkswagen took over Auto Union GmbH. The Audi brand was reintroduced a year later and Audi as we know it today began its emergence. Gone were the days of two stroke engines and Audi's first popular mass produced car – the 80 – was launched in 1972, selling more than one million units over the next six years.

Audi's reputation was further enhanced during the 1980's with the launch of the Quattro four-wheel drive system. Four-wheel drive had only previously been used on off road vehicles and as a result Audi went on to win many accolades in motor sport especially in rallying. Although the Quattro Coupe may have been consigned to the history books, the Quattro drive system still lives on today and can be found in many of Audi's high performance vehicles.

Having become a leader in the race for new technology Audi began to push the boundaries further, aluminium space frame technology is now incorporated into many of its vehicles, reducing the weight of the cars which in turn improves handling, performance and fuel consumption. This investment in engineering know how has improved the build quality of Audi almost beyond recognition and from its humble beginnings many years ago, Audi now has a build quality that is second to none, even the likes of Mercedes and Porsche have had to sit up and take notice.