The history of Audi begins in the year of 1899, where August Horch started a company title A. Horch & Cie at the location Ethrenfeld District, Cologne. It was the major efforts of Mr. Horch to bring the company upward into the automobiles world. He completed his first car with 15 fellow workers in 1901, which could produce the max power of 4-5hp, which is very tiny as compared to the today’s world. This car had a maximum speed of 32 kmph.
Sooner, in 1904, A. Horch & Cie Motorwagen-Werke AG, a newer company by Mr. Horch was established in 1904 in Zwickau to expand the success of their former company. Two years later, Sulmobil was launched. It was a three-wheeled vehicle hosted with a power of 3.5 hp motorcycle engine, though this pattern didn’t achieve any success. In the same year, the company followed another launch of a Neckarsulm Motor Car powered by a 1308cc 4-cylinder engine capable of producing a power of 10hp.
Later in 1909, August Horch, the founder of the company fell into dispute with the supervisory board and left the company he had set up. He established another company titled Automobil-Werke GmbH in the same city which was renamed in 1910 as Audiwerke GmbH. Then after introduction of few cars, August Horch started taking part in International Alpine Run, which was the most famous race of that time. He won the race for the first time in 1911 and got encouraged to take part every year. The Audi team won the prize in all the subsequent years till 1914.
Audi is the first German company which introduced left-hand drive 1921. The car model being introduced with such a system was Audi Type K. In 1926 Horchwerke AG of Zwickau introduced the Horch 303 Berlin which was the first German eight-cylinder car to going into volume production. The engine was designed by Paul Daimler and had double overhead camshafts driven by a vertical shaft. With a displacement of 3132 cc, the engine initially developed an output of 60 horsepower.
Later in the year 1932, the four Saxon motor-vehicle brands Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer joined forces to create Auto Union AG, which had its head office in Chemnitz. The new company group was consequently able to serve every market segment, from light motorcycles to luxury saloon cars.
In the following year, the Auto Union AG presented the newer Audi with front-wheel drive with a modular design principle in Berlin Motor Show.
!937 was the year when the racing cars by Auto Union crossed the speed of 400 km/h. The engine was able to produce the power of 545hp to do such speed and used the lightweight materials for its construction.
After a few years due to wars, the company was dismantled down as it was the one responsible for producing major military armaments. In 1949, the company made a new beginning again in Ingolstadt as Auto Union GmbH. The production started with 125cc bikes and delivery vans.
In the following years, the company was taken over first by Daimler-Benz in 1958 and then by Volkswagen in 1964. Then it was in 1965, when the name Audi was born. VW implemented the 4-stroke technology developed by Daimler-Benz in F102 with a badge of Audi. In the next few years, Audi introduced models like Audi 100, Audi 80 and Audi 50 which became popular for their outstanding performance. Quattro system, which is a very popular one in Audis now, was implanted in 1980s.
Many changes were introduced to the engines and frames in the passed years which created a distinctive image of Audi in every car buyer. Then in 1994, the naming convention changed to that of now. It was like, Audi 80 was known as A4, Audi 100 as A6, then the new small car in 1995 as Audi A3and then in 2000, Audi A2 and now we have the whole series now from A1 to A8 and few exceptions like Q series and RS ones which are yet very powerful and distinct. Every car has now a series of its own like say Audi A5 Series contains 3 different shape: Audi A5 Coupe, Sportback and Cabriolet. Similarly Audi A4 series also contains 3 shapes: Audi A5 Saloon, Avant and Allroad Quattro. The other cars also have varying shapes suiting according to everyone’s preference and budgets. They at major vary in their shapes, luxuries and engines. For more detail of Audi models, visit the companies official page.
