Despite Audi being synonymous with Quattro, the German automaker’s famous four-ring logo is entirely unrelated to its all-wheel-drive system and predates Quattro’s introduction by 48 years. The four interlocking rings are a direct reference to Auto Union, Audi’s predecessor, and its founding merger of four different automakers in 1932.
Audi’s corporate history begins with German engineer August Horch. He worked at Benz under founder Karl Benz and rose to become the head of vehicle production, a position he held until he left the company in 1899. Why did he go? Horch founded his own automaker, also named after himself, Horch. The new company quickly found a permanent home in Zwickau, Saxony. However, Horch wouldn’t lead the company forever. He resigned in 1909 after a dispute with the company’s board of directors.
Horch would immediately found a new manufacturer named Audi, also based in Zwickau. The company’s name was a play on words. “Horch” is also German for listen, with “Audi” being the Latin translation. The third manufacturer entered the picture when Audi struggled financially in the late 1920s. The company was bought in 1928 by Danish industrialist Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen. He also owned DKW, another Saxon automaker.
Auto Union was formed in 1932 at the stern suggestion of the State Bank of Saxony. The goal was to consolidate Saxony’s automotive industry and create a more profitable business entity. The bank was a major financier for Horch and Rasmussen, then quickly purchased Wanderer, the merger’s fourth Saxon automaker. The State Bank of Saxony ended up with an 80% stake in Germany’s second-largest automaker.
Auto Union survived World War II and the Iron Curtain
Auto Union and its four-ring logo would quickly gain international recognition through its Grand Prix racing team. Designed by Ferdinand Porsche, the automaker’s supercharged V16-powered car featured an innovative mid-engine layout. Dr. Porsche personally lobbied Adolf Hitler in 1933 to split a $119,000 racing subsidy intended solely for Mercedes-Benz with the upstart program. That’s $2.96 million in today’s dollars for the Nazi regime to leech legitimacy from Germany’s motorsport successes. Mercedes would take the lion’s share of major victories during the 1930s. However, Auto Union won the German Grand Prix in its debut season in 1934. Then, the four-ring brand dominated the 1936 season with Bernd Rosemeyer winning three of the European Championship’s four races.
World War II marked the end of this era for Auto Union. According to Audi, the company produced military vehicles for the Wehrmacht during the war and utilized forced labor by the conflict’s later stages. General Patton and the Third United States Army captured Zwickau in April 1945. However, the town and the rest of Saxony fell east of the Iron Curtain. The Red Army dismantled many of Auto Union’s factories, shipping heavy machinery back to the Soviet Union. The Grand Prix cars were taken to Moscow and eventually were at the center of a reverse engineering project to produce a Soviet racing car.
In West Germany, Auto Union re-established itself in 1945. With a need for capital investment to keep up with foreign competition, the automaker gradually sold equity to Daimler-Benz over the 1950s. Auto Union would become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Stuttgart-based manufacturer in 1959. However, a dip in revenue for Auto Union led to Volkswagen buying a controlling 50% stake in 1964. VW would purchase NSU and merge the newly acquired company with Auto Union in 1969, placing the Audi name at the forefront while retaining the four-ring logo to create the automaker we know today.
