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AUDI HISTORY
On the 14th of November 1899, August Horch (1868–1951) established the company A. Horch & Cie. in the Ehrenfeld district of Cologne, but because of a dispute between him and the supervisory board, he had to leave the company. A few years later, he established a second company, Horch Automobil-Werke GmbH. The company traces its origins back to 1909 and August Horch. The first Audi automobile, the Audi Type A 10/22 hp (16 kW) Sport-Phaeton, was produced in 1910 in Zwickau.
In 1909, Horch was forced out of the company he had founded. He then started a new company in Zwickau and continued using the Horch brand. His former partners sued him for trademark infringement, and the German Supreme Court (Reichsgericht in Berlin), finally determined that the Horch brand belonged to his former company.
Since August Horch was barred from using "Horch" as a trade name in his new car business, he called a meeting with close business friends, Paul and Franz Fikentscher from Zwickau, Germany. At the apartment of Franz Fikentscher, they discussed how to come up with a new name for the company. During this meeting, Franz's son was quietly studying Latin in a corner of the room. Several times he looked like he was on the verge of saying something but would just swallow his words and continue working, until he finally blurted out, "Father – audiatur et altera pars... wouldn't it be a good idea to call it audi instead of horch?". "Horch!" in German means "Hark!" or "hear", which is "Audi" in the singular imperative form of "audire" - "to listen" - in Latin. The idea was enthusiastically accepted by everyone attending the meeting. The first Audi car, the Type B, 10/28PS was delivered early 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.
