Audi Independent Service

From Horch to the Four Rings

Audi's story begins on 14 November 1899, when August Horch founded A. Horch & Cie in Cologne. The first cars followed in 1901, and after moves to Reichenbach and then Zwickau the firm became a joint-stock company. A dispute with the supervisory board led Horch to leave in 1909 and set up a new works in Zwickau under his own name. Having lost the legal right to use it, he reached for the Latin translation of the old German word 'horch' — listen! — and the Audi marque was born.

The date 29 June 1932 is central to the company's history: the four Saxon marques Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer merged into Auto Union AG in Zwickau, and the four interlinked rings of that union remain Audi's logo today. After the Second World War the company's assets were confiscated and the firm was dissolved, then re-founded in 1949 as Auto Union GmbH in Ingolstadt, Bavaria. Auto Union passed to Daimler-Benz in 1958 and was acquired by Volkswagen in 1965; a merger with the carmaker NSU followed in 1969, based in Neckarsulm.

The first Audi 100 appeared in 1968, followed by the Audi 80. The quattro of 1980 brought permanent all-wheel drive — previously the preserve of off-road vehicles and trucks — to the road car and, backed by motorsport success, spread through the whole range. The company took the Audi AG name in the mid-1980s, entered the luxury class with the V8 in 1988, and renewed its range through the 1990s with the A8, A4, A6, A3, the TT sports coupe and the aluminium-bodied A2, building cars in several countries across three continents.