Despite the fact that Audi is synonymous with Quattro, the famous four-ring logo of the German automaker is completely separate from its four-wheel drive and dates from 48 years before the introduction of Quattro. The four intersecting rings are a direct reference to Auto Union, Audi’s predecessor and the founding merger of four different car manufacturers in 1932.
Audi’s company history starts with the German engineer August Horch. He worked at Benz under founder Karl Benz and got up to become the head of the vehicle production, a position he held until he left the company in 1899. Why did he go? Horch founded his own car maker, also named after himself, Horch. The new company quickly found a permanent house in Zwickau, Saxony. However, Horch would not lead the company forever. He resigned in 1909 after a dispute with the board of directors of the company.
Horch would immediately find a new manufacturer called Audi, also located in Zwickau. The name of the company was a pun. “Horch” is also German to listen, with “Audi” the Latin translation. The third manufacturer came in the image when Audi struggled financially in the late 1920s. The company was purchased in 1928 by the Danish industrialist Jørgen Skafe Rasmussen. He was also possessed DKW, another Saxon car maker.
Auto Union was formed in 1932 on the strict suggestion of the State Bank of Saxony. The goal was to consolidate the car industry of Saxony and to create a more profitable business entity. The bank was an important financier for Horch and Rasmussen, and then quickly bought Wanderer, the fourth Saxon car maker of the merger. The State Bank of Saxony ended with an interest of 80% in the second largest car maker in Germany.
Auto Union survived the Second World War and the Iron Curtain
Auto Union and his four-ring logo would soon receive international recognition through his Grand Prix Racing team. Designed by Ferdinand Porsche, the supercharged V16-driven car of the automaker contained an innovative layout for mid-engine. Dr. Porsche lobbyed personally on Adolf Hitler in 1933 to split a racing subsidy of $ 119,000, only intended for Mercedes-Benz with the UpStart program. That is $ 2.96 million in today’s dollars for the Nazi regime to perform the legitimacy of Leech from Motorsport -Successes of Germany. Mercedes would achieve the lion’s share of great victories in the 1930s. Auto Union, however, won the German Grand Prix in his debut season in 1934, then the four-ring brand then dominated the 1936 season with Bernd Rosemeyer who won three of the four races of the European Championship.
The Second World War marked the end of this era for Auto Union. According to AudiThe company produced military vehicles for the Wehrmacht during the war and used forced labor through the later stages of the conflict. General Patton and the third US Army conquered Zwickau in April 1945. However, the city and the rest of Saxony fell east of the Iron Curtain. The Red Army dismantled many Auto Union factories and sent heavy machines back to the Soviet Union. The Grand Prix cars were brought to Moscow and were eventually in the center of a reverse engineering project to produce a Soviet racing car.
In West Germany, Auto Union recovered in 1945. With a need for capital investments to keep track of foreign competition, the automaker gradually sold equity to Daimler-Benz in the 1950s. Auto Union would Become a wholly-or-orned subsidiary of the Stuttgart-Based in-reefacturer in 1959. Volkswagen Buying A Controlling 50% Stake in 1964. VW would Purchase NSU and Merge the Newly Acquired Company With Auto Union in 1969, Placing the Audi Name At The Forefront While Retninging the Four-Ring Logo to Create The Automaker We Know Today.
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