Audi was founded in 1910, and for many people it will come as a surprise, but it came about after a court case. That year, the court heard another case in which the defendant was August Horch and his colleagues, who worked at Horch. As a result of the trial, August Horch was forced to leave his own company, which he had founded in 1899. He could not sit idle for long and decided to reconstitute the company under his own name, but the law forbade the existence of two firms with the same name in one city, and the court decided to give the newer company a different name: Audi. Translated from Latin, the word means the same thing as Horch - that is, "To listen." That is how one of the most famous automobile concerns in the world appeared today.
The first car to be produced by the new Audi company had a four-cylinder engine with a displacement of 2,612 cm3. It was strikingly similar to all previous models produced by the first company. After the release of the first car, August Horch realized that cars were in demand and began to launch new models, the only difference in them was the engine, more precisely in its volume: 3562, 5720, 4680 and other engine volumes. On all cars, began to install only symmetric valves.
Only by 1911, it was thanks to the persistence of August Horch, the first Audi car was able to achieve results in the Alps Cup, where it was able to go the whole distance without receiving a single penalty point. The shortcomings of the first Audi cars were many, August Horch understood this and every day tried to develop a more perfect model. In 1913 another model appeared: the Audi C, the engine volume of this car was 3.5 liters. Unlike other models of cars of this brand, the crankshaft was displaced away from the cylinders. The body was completely redesigned, somewhat lengthened and sharpened, which gave the car more streamlined, as well as a more pleasant and imposing appearance. Already by 1914 the new car was a huge success in the races and received the title Conqueror of the Alps.
In the 20s of the last century the most popular car of the brand became the Audi-K, the engine capacity of which was 50 hp, and the engine volume was 3.5 liters. Up to that moment, all engines were four-cylinder. The first car with an engine with six cylinders was the Audi-M. The year of production of this model was 1924. The engine volume of this car was 4.6 liters and for the first time the camshaft was mounted on top. Cylinders were made of aluminum alloys, and the crankshaft was now mounted on seven supports. The braking system also underwent significant changes - the brakes now had an additional vacuum booster. Such a car for those times could reach a great speed - 120 km per hour.
The year 1928 was a turning point in auto manufacturing, that's when the new Audi R appeared for the first time, which had an engine with eight cylinders. This car was the last development that Audi made on its own. DKW, another car company, seeing the good progress of Audi, joined it. The founder of the company decided not to create new engines, but to use Rickenbacker developments, buying all its equipment and drawings. Thus, already in 1929 there were updated cars under the Audi brand, mostly all engines were 6-8 cylinder, less often four-cylinder engines were used.
The year 1932 was a turning point in the automobile industry, when four automobile companies united to form one concern: Auto Union. The group included the following companies: DKW, Audi, Horch and Wanderer. The first fruits of this joint cooperation were soon to come and soon Audi produced a front-drive Front range car equipped with a Wanderer engine of 2.2 liters. This was followed by another model, the Audi 920, which used another Horch engine with a displacement of 3.3 liters. This car was already rear-wheel drive.
It occurred to the director of DKW to start mass production of cars with front-wheel drive, he made an offer to other members of the concern, and all willingly agreed. The development did not take long and a year later, the new six-cylinder Audi car came out. This car was produced for a long time, until 1938 inclusive, and from time to time it was possible to notice some additions in it. By design features this car was very similar to the Alvis. This car was the first front-wheel drive car of the middle class. At that time, it could reach a fairly high speed of 105 km. per hour. Towards the end of the production of this model at the motor show in Berlin was presented a sportier model, it was a three-seater.
With the onset of the Great Patriotic War, production of cars had been temporarily suspended. The plants began to produce military equipment, or more precisely Trabant cars for the military. Audi for a time simply disappeared, as during the war and the first postwar period, concern Auto Union, produced only cars of DKW. Only in 1957 did Auto Union production began to come back to life again, and the first car was presented: the Auto Union 1000.
In 1958, the concern Auto Union became a subsidiary of Daimler Benz. Daimler Benz, expanding the production of cars every year, by 1964 came to the point that would begin mass production of front-wheel drive vehicles. By this time the entire company was run by the new Volkswagen concern, which revived Audi. In 1965, at the exhibition in Frankfurt a new model Audi 1700 was presented, which was equipped with the latest for those times economical engine. The power of this car was 72 hp.
In fact, throughout the history of automobile industry, there have been many mergers of companies and concerns, and in 1969, there was another event: Auto Union merged with NSU company, and together the concern became known as NSU Auto Union.
Until 1984 there were no further changes, only this year the company's management decided to change the name of its concern to something more practical: Audi
During the history of Audi the most key moment can be called the development of the newest model of car, which actually saved the whole brand Audi, secretly from the concern.
The main and most important developments at Audi took place in the last 20-25 years, at that time the company, which was part of Volkswagen, was not taken seriously. Audi started to produce all-wheel drive cars by the mid-eighties and still managed to achieve a vocation in the automotive world. Mostly - this achievement belongs to Ferdinand Piech, who was the main developer of all-wheel drive cars with a built-in Audi quattro modification. The cars produced under this engineer, more than a dozen times achieved success in various automobile races.
To sum it all up, you can understand that Audi is a real leader in selling premium luxury cars.
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