Remember Fractured Fairy Tales?

Call this Hysterical History. Or come up with a better name for me to use.

Prior installments - how VW came to buy Porsche, and how Safeway came to be Safeway again... now, THE HISTORY OF AUDI!

http://www.dinesh.com/history_of_logos/car_logos_-_design_and_history/audi_logo_-_design_and_history.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_Union
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSU_Motorenwerke_AG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DKW

Horch/DKW/Wanderer/Audi = Auto Union

Audi = Latin for "Hear" or "To Hear" (or "listen")
Horch = Founder's name, yes, but German infinitive for "Hear" (or "listen")

Is it possible that what distinguishes Audi at its soul is listening to what people want?

I can NEVER remember DKW. It's so SIMPLE too - Dampf Kraft Wagen (rolls eyes). 'Cause all those shiny cars on your lot SO remind me of steam powered buggies.

Horch were actually more elite PKWs (Personnen Kraft Wagen, as distinct from Last Kraft Wagen) during and immediately after the Hitlerzeit than were Mercedes. And, of course, BMW was an aircraft motor company and motorbike company.

When I was an exchange student to Wolfsburg in high school, everyone in northern Germany called BMW "Bayerische Mist Wagen" - Bavarian Manure Cart.

Mercedes were taxis.

NSU is an older company than is Daimler-Benz, being founded in 1873. Karl Benz made his first motorcar in 1885. Of course, NSU started off making sewing machines. They started making motorcycles in 1901. They were, in 1955, the largest motorcycle company in the world. Started producing cars (again) in 1957, and were the first company to mass produce Wankel engined automobiles - the most famous being the Ro80, spiritual predecessor to the Audi 80/VW Passat, now being sold as the A4. The Ro80 was the European Car of the Year in 1967.

Producing such a revolutionary car broke the bank, and VW AG bought them in 1969, merged them into Auto Union (which for many years hadn't been doing much of anything) and renamed the whole shooting match "Audi" even though that brand (of the five) was the least well known. Maybe they were on to something.

After the war, only DKW were produced in West Germany - all of the Horch, Wanderer, Auto Union facilities ended up in EAST Germany. Daimler (those bastards) bought a controlling interest in Auto Union in 1957, bought the rest of the farm in 1959 and then started getting cold feet. With the help of the Lower Saxony government, VW bought the schtuff in 1964. Horch had bought the farm during the war, and Auto Union was resurrected by Daimler, who never really recovered from AU's Silver Arrows whipping the shit out of Daimler's racers in the 1930s.

Damiler had designed a lovely little platform called the F103, which was the foundation for the Audi 80/VW Passat, save for that the Audi version was only sold as "Audi" (single model) until the acquisition of NSU a few years later. In 1965, VW kicked the DKW name to the kurb, and Audi was the brand.