Shower gels and generally beauty-product brands have a way of appealing to customers by thrusting desire through sensorial-related names and presentation of their offers. Olfactory sense-stroking balms and soothing cashmere-touch night cream-approaches are basically the most commonly used methods of conveying beauty and easy customer-access to deeply-rooted sensorial pampering, unless beauty is forged out of steel and thousands of accurately engineered parts.
Automobiles undoubtedly fall into the latter category, and what better way of striking at least one of the remaining three senses if not building an image of a mighty engine roar or purr of a loyal cylinder sextet cradled under the bonnet of an Audi car? Audi translates as 'listen' from latin and besides expressing an unanimously accepted passion of the motorist, that of listening to the engine as if it were a never before heard dissertation on mechanics blended with boisterous 'deux ex machina' comments and demonstrations, it also marks the birth of Audi following Horch's demise, the previous name of the company that can be traced back to 1899.
Its founder, August Horch was forced out of his own company in 1909 due to trademark infringements, 8 years after the first automobile had rolled out the gates of the plant in Zwickau, Germany. After having been dispensed of, Horch started his own company under the same name which led to a fair share of trouble that came to an end as soon as Horch called for a meeting at the apartment of Franz Fikentscher to discuss the matter and come up with a new name for the company. Franz's son who was studying latin at the time was the true deliverer of the name that would later became synonymous with luxury and quality. As 'Horch' means listen in Old German, the boy simply made a switched the name with its latin corespondent, 'audi', sparking enthusiasm into the 'audience' that quickly adopted the name.
Audi's start o the German market was high lighted by the appearance of 2.6 liter engine powered vehicles followed by a series of more powerful ones, such as 4.7 L and the gas-gulping 5.7 L. Having gotten to see his company grow wings, Horch left in in 1920, four years before Audi's first 6 cylinder model was built. In 19128, Audi was acquired By Jorgen Rasmussen, owner of rival company DKW.
A few years later, a merger between Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer occurred and thus, the Auto Union was formed in 1932. Those times called for a new badge and the four interlocked rings were born as a sign of unity and identity of the newly formed auto-conglomerate. Technological improvement became a top priority that first took shape during the Second World War when an armored car was produced for the German Army. |
