Audi was founded by August Horch in 1909, the year he was forced out of the company he founded in 1899. In the beginning, Horch continued to trade under the Horch brand, but after his partners sued him for trademark infringement, he was forced to come up with another name for his company; it was then that the Audi name came up.
During a meeting in Franz Fikentschers' apartment to come up with a new name for the company, Franz's son who was studying Latin at the time (common in those days), suggested that instead of Horch they used Audi which mean "Hark!" or "Horch" German for "hear" and the idea was accepted by everyone attending the meeting.
The first models produced by Audi were the 2,612 cc 2.6 litre 4 cylinder model, followed by a 3564 cc 3.6 litre model, as well as 4680 cc 4.7 L and 5720 cc 5.7L models. In 1921 Audi was the first German car manufacturer to build a left-hand drive production car, the Audi Type K.
Audi Models of the 1920's were luxurious and were becoming successful in the racing tracks, in the early 30's Audi merged with Horch, DKW and Wanderer to form Auto Union.
With the creation of Auto Union the four overlapping rings badge was created to represent the union of the four German car manufacturers. The Auto Union era is best known for its success in the racing tracks. The Silver Arrows dominated the GP car racing from 1934 onwards and established records that were only equalled in the early 80's by turbocharged F1 cars.
We'll skip the WW II and Post War periods, I jump all the way to early 80's when introduced the Quattro four wheel drive and the Audi Quattro, commonly know at the time as Ur-Quattro, a turbocharged coupé that dominated the rally tracks in the 80's and was the first German car to be produced in large scale featuring permanent all-wheel-drive (Quattro).
In 1985 Auto Union was officially dead and Audi shortened its name to Audi AG. Over the following years Audi introduced less successful models like the Audi 80 and the Audi 90.
Audi's big break happened in 1994 with the introduction of the Audi A4, a predecessor for the Audi 80, the Audi A4 gain recognition and sales went up which led Audi to develop more powerful and luxurious models like the Audi A6 and A8.
Two years later Audi released what became its most successful model to date, the Audi A3, built in conjunction with the Volkswagen Group using the same platform as the A4, the A3 was initially available only as a 3 door hatchback.
In 2000 Audi revolutionised sports car racing once again with the Audi R8 and dominated the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans, winning 5 of 7 years it competed.
After 20 years of research with diesel engines the results were paid off with another revolutionary racing car the Audi R10 TDI, which again dominated Le Mans' racing tracks for four consecutive years, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, till it was replaced the new Audi R15 TDI.
All technological advances made by Audi in the racing tracks are used in its models nowadays. With their high fuel efficiency and low emissions the TDI engines are a reference, the petrol engines have high fuel efficiency thanks to Audi's Valvelift technology, not to mention the Quattro four-wheel-drive and all the other technological advances Audi makes year after year.
Prove to that is the Audi R8 a state of the art sports car that was successful in the racing and in less than 2 years gained respect of sports cars enthusiast form all over the world.
Audi's success is the reflect of the company's tagline Vorsprung durch Technik, meaning "Advantage through Technology".
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