The Audi history concerning the quattro concept
The Audi history begins with a man called August Horch, who founded the
Company HORCH & CO in 1899.He invented his first car 1901 with the help of 15 fellow
workers. The car had a max. speed of 32 km/h. In 1909 Mr. Horch had to leave his company
due to major problems with the commercial management and founded another company called
Audi. " Audi" is the Latin translation for "Horch" and he took that
name because he wanted to build cars under his own name. So the brand "AUDI
Automobilwerke GmbH" was registraded in 1910. Until the First World War some of the
cars built under the Audi name won several rallies, which helped to establish the name
worldwide. During the first war Audi was forced to produce vehicles for the war effort,
and then after the war the recession was also a tremendous problem for the company.
Therefore the founder August Horch left the management in 1920. The company managed to get
through the hard times from 1927 to 1930, but in 1931 the management recognized that only
a union with other vehicle manufacturer could keep Audi alive. At that time the AUTO UNION
was founded, the members were DKW, HORCH, WANDERER and AUDI. The new companies insignia to
show the union of the four companies was the now familiar 4 rings , which are still used
by Audi today.
The new union had great success in motor sport in the ensuing years. The most
powerful car that was build before the 2nd world war was a 6 litre V 16 engine with 382
KW( 582PS) in 1936. In the years during the 2nd world war the AUTO UNION once again were
forced to build vehicles for German military. Many motorcycles, engines, different war
vehicles and even parts for submarines were build until 1945. At that time all factories
in Germany were completely destroyed by American bombers.
After the war had ended there were about 60 000 DKW military vehicles worldwide that
needed spare parts and maintaince. This was the reason a new start in Ingolstadt, southern
Germany was made. Soon after the war there were again many cars produced, the most
important for me was the DKW Munga, a four-wheel jeep with 3-cylinder 2-stroke engine.
Invented in 1956 for the German military, there were only 250 cars produced for testing
purposes. On of these cars made a trip around the world and drove over 240 000 km
without major problems. This was the beginning of the later concept called Quattro. Nearly
57 000 Mungaswere built until 1968.
|
|
|
In the following years many different engine- and car types were invented
and produced in large amounts. The 2-stroke system was replaced by the 4 stroke one in
1965, a milestone in the engine development. For the power or the engines has been risen
continually, the company thought about a new drive train concept. An performance of over
100 KW with front wheel drive shows heavy abrasion on the front tires and dangerous
Ferrari a effects. The Iltis jeep what had replaced the Munga hadn’t that problems
and the reason for that was not the minor performance of 75hp, it was the 4 wheel concept.
Mr.Bensinger, the father of the Quattro, made many tests and tried to convince the
management to give him green light for building a four wheel drive concept in an street
car. The board of directors were not very pleased with that idea because the thought that
nobody will buy such an car and especially if it was a high technology one not build by
Porsche or Mercedes. These two firms were the only ones that had the name to do such huge
inventions. One has to notify that the Auto Union at that time had no reputation in build
high tech cars. Fortunately Mr.Bensinger did a good job, the project QUATTRO was born and
the management decided to make this drive train concept famous all over the world with
high activities in motor sport. The name AUDI should become as worthfull as Porsche and
Mercedes.
To get the car ready in an short time many parts of available other types were used. The
engine came out of the 200, the body was from the Audi 80 at first and the drive train
came out of the Iltis, the successor of the famous Munga. Certainly many parts were
braced, changed in size and improved for the high performance the car should have. After
two years of improving, testing and rallying the first real ur-quattro with the new coupe
body was build in 1980. The power has been risen to 200hp in the testing time, not a bad
number if you think that most of the other car producer did with an 2.2l engine.
For all people who cannot stand the mistakes and bad expressions: Its really not easy for a german Quattro fan...................................