There is another luxury that is always questioned by others, and that is Audi.
Four laps, Audi's lifestyle.
Why is Audi, as a luxury brand, always considered as "inferior", or is the brand gold content lower than that of Mercedes-Benz BMW?
To be sure, Audi is a luxury brand. It is easy to attract others' indifference. Why?
No one doubts the status of Mercedes-Benz. Mercedes-Benz No.1, inventor Carl Benz and BMW, are all behind aircraft engines and motorcycles. When you come to Audi, you should start from four circles. ...
The reason why the Audi logo has four circles is that each circle symbolizes a company at that time, Audi, DKW, Horsey and Rover. Before the merger, the automobile alliance company included these four companies, covering businesses from motorcycles to luxury cars.
First, let's talk about Horch.
Augustine Horc (Auguste? Horch) is the founder of Audi. When I was young, I worked as an engineer in Carl Benz's factory for several years. After leaving his job, he founded a company named "Horsey". However, he left the company because of disagreement with the board of directors and the board of supervisors.
Audi fell first in the economic crisis.
After leaving his job, Halsey decided to start another car company. At that time, people really liked to name their companies after themselves, and so did Horsey. But "Horsey" has been used in the original company and registered the trademark. What should I do?
The road is still much more difficult than it! Hoshi translated the name into Latin "Audi", meaning "listening" and "Horch", so the new company Audi was established and the Audi brand was born (19 10).
At that time, Audi's fame was attributed to winning the international Austrian Alpine Rally in1912-1914. World War I also brought many innovations. For example, the left-hand steering wheel is Audi's initiative, and the shift lever is moved to the middle of the car. Air filter and hydraulic four-wheel drive braking system are the highlights of Audi.
Audi's luxury began with the first six-cylinder Audi car in 1923, followed by an eight-cylinder car accelerator.
In the 1920s, Audi was the representative of high-powered luxury cars! After all, there is such a concept in Horsey's car-making concept: under any circumstances, only luxury cars with strong power and high quality are produced.
However, in addition to the world war, it is the oil crisis or economic crisis that affects the major decisions of automobile enterprises! In order to get rid of the world economic crisis, Audi began to try to produce Type? Type P, equipped with a four-cylinder engine. However, is the economic depression still that type? P was strangled in the cradle and only 327 units were produced.
Economic depression, the national purchasing power plummeted. You can't afford four cylinders, let alone six cylinders and eight cylinders.
Audi fell for the second time in World War II.
It was in the 1920s, when Audi, DKW, Star and Rover were not together. Everyone needs to expand the market, but it is difficult to save themselves from their own financial problems, and they have to rely on bank loans to support them.
Later, in order to safeguard the interests in the automobile industry, Saxony Bank established an automobile alliance with four companies, with total assets of 65.438+04.5 million Deutsche Mark.
At that time, the automobile alliance developed rapidly, the sales increased steadily from 65 million Deutsche Mark to 276 million Deutsche Mark, and the number of employees, motorcycles and cars increased greatly.
However, bad luck still came, and the outbreak of World War II declared the end of the automobile alliance! Vehicles produced in wartime can only be used for military purposes. After the war, it was fate that the production facilities were confiscated and dismantled by the former Soviet occupation forces ... and the company was cancelled!
Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen have become the "bosses" of Audi.
1949, a new automobile alliance company was born, which is the predecessor of Audi automobile group.
At that time, after all, it was still after the war, it was not easy to resume production, and the people's consumption level was limited. Therefore, when the new alliance was established, there were only DKW motorcycles and cars with two-stroke engines.
1958, Daimler-Benz acquired 88% of the shares of the new automobile alliance, and bought them all the next year! Later, the production and sales of the new automobile alliance were sluggish, and the financial crisis also came. At this time, Mercedes chose to let go and resell it to the public.
After being acquired by Volkswagen, the new automobile alliance escaped the fate of bankruptcy, and the two-stroke engine that was once good at it no longer existed.
At this time, Volkswagen's Beetle series became the savior of the new automobile alliance. After all, you have to build a car to reflect your self-worth. During the period of 1965- 1969, 348,000 Beetle series models were assembled, which made it possible to support workers and make profits.
Wait, why did you say you didn't see Audi?
Audi's ups and downs, from World War II to Volkswagen's hands, in fact, there is nothing wrong with Audi ~ Auto was hanged in the early stage of the New Automobile Alliance? Audi's sense of existence is very low, and the word alliance of the four-ring logo and the DKW logo.
Audi 100 brings Audi back to the "main line".
The two-stroke engine is useless, so what is the new automobile alliance for? The four-cylinder four-stroke engine developed by Daimler-Benz is assembled on DKW f 102. Later, it was launched as an Audi car, and the response was good, which made the new automobile alliance out of the predicament.
1968, Audi 100 was officially released, which made Audi really return to everyone's vision and enter the mid-to high-end car market. Audi 100 quickly became the highest-selling model, which laid the foundation for the development of Audi series into an independent brand.
Audi 100 is undoubtedly a messianic existence, but it adopted a predecessor layout, which was relatively advanced at that time. After all, Volkswagen was based on the rear drive of the Beatles, while Audi was the front drive.
Quattro, Audi's highlight moment.
Because of the economic depression, the new automobile alliance and NSU automobile company merged in 1969 to form Audi -NSU automobile joint-stock company.
Next, we came to quattro four-wheel drive. 1980 applied Audi's exclusive technology quattro four-wheel drive system, and the first batch of full-time four-wheel drive caused a sensation. Later, he participated in the competition and won many championships in the World Automobile Manufacturers Championship, the World Rally and the World Cross-country Championship, which made him famous.
1 985 65438+1October1,Audi -NSU Automobile Co., Ltd. was renamed as Audi Automobile Co., Ltd. 1988, and Audi's first 3.5L? The appearance of V8 luxury car-V8 car marks Audi's return to the top luxury car market.
Yes, Audi finally stood up!
Along the way, Audi first lived by the alliance, and later it was acquired by the big boss. At 1998, I finally did a very big thing, that is, I bought Lamborghini.
A century-old Audi, along the bumpy road, finally achieved its own luxury. It is also worthy of the ambition of Horsey, the founder of the year, to produce only high-quality luxury cars with strong power.
In China, there will always be people who think Audi is a pseudo-luxury, and a very important statement is the forerunner.
Why should Audi be the forerunner? Because the predecessor was the turning point of Audi, it went to revival! Why not build a rear drive? In fact, everyone knows the answer, and that is quattro…… ... ...
One more thing, maybe because I feel belittled on the same platform as the public. However, let's see if Lamborghini Urus is a super sports version of Q8 ~
Of course, I am not here to defend Audi's pseudo-luxury, but to talk about what happened in the era behind the brand growth.
What a brand looks like now, we can't just look at the present, but selectively turn a blind eye to its past.
Audi: Who knows what I went through ~
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.