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Audi Motor Company The Audi Car company can trace its origins all the way back to 1989, when Albert Horch founded the company and began to design his first automobile. It was produced in 1901, in Zwickau,Germany. The 1901 Horch Just nine years later in 1910, Horch was forced out of his own company but he continued to design and develop automobiles, still using the Horch brand name. He was sued for trademark infringement and it was determined by a German court that the brand name did indeed belong to his former company. Albert Horch would not be allowed to use his own name in his new family business. He immediately called a meeting at his friends house, Franz Fikentscher in order to come up with a new name. It was Franz son who spoke up to tell the men his idea: ‘Horch' in German meant ‘Hark', which in turn, means ‘Audi' in Latin (which he was studying at the time). The idea was a success with everyone who attended the meeting that day. This puts laid to rest the myth that Audi is an acronym that stands for ‘Auto Union Deutschland Ingolstadt'. Audi began their automobile development with various models based on the four cylinder engine, producing cars that were successful at sporting events. Horch eventually left the company in 1920, four years later, the first six cylinder engine appeared from Audi. By 1928, the company had been taken over by Jorgen Ramussen. The owner of DKW, he had also recently acquired that same year the leftovers of US automobile manufacturer, Rickenbacker. Part of this haul included the equipment for manufacturing eight cylinder engines. No time was wasted and by 1929, Audi was producing models with this sized engine at both the Dresden and Zwickau plants. By 1932, Audi had merged with Horch, DKW and Wanderer to form Auto Union and before the onset of World War II, they had already began to use the four interlinked rings that make up the brand logo today. Each link represents one of the four companies that amalgamated. The Auto Union plants were heavily bombed during the war and after the war, it became part of the German Democratic Republic. In 1963 Daimler-Benz acquired 88 per cent of the company and the following year they sold the company to Volkswagon. By 1965 Volkswagon had ‘re-launched' the Audi brand, although what they actually did was make a model of automobile called and ‘Audi', rather than re-name the company itself. In the 1970 model year, Auto Union (who had already merged with NSU in 1969) formed a new company known as ‘Audi NSU Auto Union AG'. Finally we saw the emergence of Audi as a separate brand name since the pre-war era. The first of these cars to feature the Audi emblem once again was the Audi 80/Fox in 1972, which eventually formed the basis for the Volkwagon Passat in 1973. In 1974 the Audi 50 joined the fray and later became the basis for today's Volkswagon Polo. Toward the end of the eighties, in 1986, Audi had become known for developing the ‘Grandad' car, the type 89. It was a completely new development which sold very well although it's modern and dynamic exterior belied the low performance of it's base engine and Spartan package, (even the passenger wing mirror was an Then, in the early 1990's the Audi 80 series began to slump in sales and basic construction problems began to surface with the models. These problems included, as reported on America's 60 Minutes, unintended acceleration. This report on nationwide TV did Audi no favours in their sales figures, and really had no grounds for the complaint. Evidence later showed that it was probably more likely due to the close placement of the accelerator and brake pedals. They were at such a close proximity that Americans would not have been used to it al all. The findings came about as Audi realised these complaints were not being held in Europe, where they were used to such a pedal set-up. Eventually, sales began to recover in the mid 1990's with the release of the hugely popular A4 in 1996 which became something of a turning point for them. By 2004, Audi were in their 11th year of straight increase in sales. Record figures came flooding in from 21 out of the 50 major sales markets worldwide, with the largest increases occurring in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Audi began building it's first two dealerships in India in March 2005, still riding on their wave of success the previous year. Today, Audi are leaders in their class for innovation. They have developed the Multi Media Interface (MMI), a computerised control system for all their cars which at the time of issue, was out-performing the BMW version. A touch-screen system that allows the driver to control everything from the radio and satellite navigation to the TV, heating/cooling and car controls. It has been very well received by consumers worldwide and has ensured that Audi is a car manufacturer that is here to stay. Audi Car Insurance Models100 Avant 200 80 90 A2 A3 A4 A4 Avant A6 A6 Avant A8 Allroad Avant Cabriolet Convertible Q7 Quattro R8 RS2 RS4 RS4Avant RS6 S2 S3 S4 S4 Avant S6 S6 Avant S8 TT V8 |
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