1935 Horch 5 litre

Horch

The company was established first by August Horch and his first business partner Salli Herz on November 14, 1899 at Ehrenfeld, Cologne. August Horch was a former production manager for Karl Benz. Three years later in 1902 he moved with his company to Reichenbach im Vogtland. On May, 10th, 1904 he founded the Horch & Cie. Motorwagenwerke AG, a joint-stock company in Zwickau (State of Saxony). The city of Zwickau was the capital of the South Western Saxon County and one of Saxony's industrial centres at the time.

On July 16, 1909, August Horch, after troubles with Horch chief financial officer, founded his second company, the August Horch Automobilwerke GmbH in Zwickau. He had to rename his new company because Horch was already a registred brand and he did not hold the rights on it. On April 25, 1910 the brand Audi was entered in the company's register of Zwickau registration court. Audi is the Latin translation of horch, the imperative form of the German verb hören ("to hear"). The Audi name was proposed by a son of one of his business partners from Zwickau.
The company initially began producing 5 hp (3.7 kW; 5.1 PS) and 10 hp (7.5 kW; 10 PS) twin-cylinder engine automobiles near Cologne in 1901.

The first Horch had a 4.5 hp (3.4 kW; 4.6 PS) engine, with an alloy crankcase, a unique achievement in those days. It had an open-body design, with lighting provided by lanterns with candles in them. In contrast with the powerful cars of later years, the first Horch could barely reach a top speed of 32 km/h (20 mph). It was significant at that time because it used a friction clutch, and also had a drive shaft to power the wheels.

The firm soon ran into financial troubles, not surprising considering the pioneering nature of the automobile business at that time. Horch had to seek new partners.

On March 1902, August Horch produced a 20 hp (15 kW; 20 PS) four-cylinder car with a shaft drive in Reichenbach in Vogtland. Horch cars were considered more advanced and superior to those being then built by Mercedes or Benz (who were then separate manufacturers).

By 1903, Horch had built a car with a four-cylinder engine. In March of the following year, he introduced his new car at the Frankfurt Fair.

In 1904, August Horch developed the first six-cylinder engine, which appeared in 1907. In 1906 a Horch automobile driven by Dr. Rudolf Stöss from Zwickau won the Herkomer Competition (equivalent to a 'brand-name' world championship at the time). In the 1920s, Moritz Stauss, a cosmopolitan Berliner, was the principal stockholder of the Horch company. He succeeded in making the Horch brand highly desirable by introducing art into the advertising of their products. He recognized that only a brand emphasising Horch's unique characteristics would be successful.

In 1923, Paul Daimler (a Stauss associate) worked for Horch as the chief engineer for 8-cylinder engines. Horch vehicles were subsequently the first to introduce 8-cylinder engines in series production.


Both companies from Zwickau (Horch and Audi) were unified in 1932 with DKW and Wanderer to Saxony's Auto Union corporation. The Silver Arrow racing cars of the Auto Union racing team in Zwickau, developed by Ferdinand Porsche and Robert Eberan von Eberhorst, driven by Bernd Rosemeyer, Hans Stuck, Tazio Nuvolari, Ernst von Delius, were known the world over in the 1930s.
In 1909, the supervisory board (the German equivalent of the Board of Directors) of the corporation forced out Horch. Horch went on to found Audi as Audiwerke GmbH, which became effective on 25 April 1910. The name was a solution to the legal dispute with his old company over use of the Horch brand.

In 1928, the company was acquired by Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen, owner of DKW (from the German Dampfkraftwagen, or steam engine vehicle) who had bought the remains of the US automobile manufacturer Rickenbacker in the same year. The Rickenbacker purchase included their manufacturing equipment for eight-cylinder engines.

Auto Union
Eventually, on 29 June 1932, Horch, Audi, DKW and Wanderer merged to form the Auto Union affiliated group. The current Audi four-ring logo is the Auto Union logo that represents for the merger of these four brands. In the 1930s, Horch introduced a new line of smaller and cheaper, but still presentable, V8 automobiles. In 1936, Horch presented the 25,000th 8-cylinder luxury car in Zwickau.

Auto Union became a major supplier of automobiles to the German armed forces. Civilian production was suspended after March 1940. After the war, Auto Union, newly founded in West Germany, continued civilian car production. Due to widespread poverty in post-war Germany, only small DKW vehicles were produced. Luxury vehicle production did not resume until Auto Union was purchased in 1964 by Volkswagen Group and the old brand Audi was introduced again.