Volkswagen Without Audi?

[Simon]

The recent death of Ferdinand Piëch reminded me of a question I had been wondering about. How important was Volkswagen's purchase of Auto Union in 1964 and NSU Motorenwerke in 1969, merging them to create what we now know as Audi? VW kept the Beetle in production longer than they probably should, there seem to have been several development projects carried out to create a replacement but for technical or personal reasons none were gone ahead with. I've come across several sources which state that Audi was very important as Auto Union and NSU brought experience with water-cooled front-engines and front-wheel drive so it got me wondering how important actually was the knowledge they brought?

 

[Michel Van]

Now how today Audi came to exist, is wild and strange story of Legends.
Actually the old Management of VW bought Auto Union GmbH from Mercedes in 1965, in order to Expand there Beetle production.

They got the Production site at Ingolstadt, were they build DKW F102 car (with two-stroke engine)
There new boss Rudolf Leiding found there were 30000 DKW F102 stored, he decided with factory manager Ludwig Kraus to put that in use.
Restart the production line, but modified those cars for four-stroke engine (called F103 project)
Original planned was that after 30000 modified cars, that Production was stop and transform to Beetle production.

But there was another problem how to name the Car ?
They took the brand Name Audi from Auto Union GmbH and there company logo the four rings, they had millions of those rings in Stock...
Those DKW F103 was sell as a Audi 60 and it was instantly success and new Audi Werke produce 416,853 Audi 60

And all this behind back of VW Management in Wolfsburg,
So the Legend, the management notice the increase of sales of "Audi 60" Cars, but who to hell is Audi ?
In mean time Ludwig Kraus develop in secretly a complete new Audi 100, he knew the Beetle had no future

VW boss Heinrich Nordhoff, was quite surprise of Success of Audi brand
Original he order that they would not develop new models and transform to Beetle production only.
Now VW had success car, that was not a Beetle and Kraus presented Nordhoff the New Model Audi 100
not as a model, but as first Audi 100 that drove off the Assembly line...

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Ex Audi orationem meam. Out of Audi (comes the answer to) my prayer.
VW exec later.

 

[kernals12]

NSU would simply disappear into ether and only be known by extremely nerdy car enthusiasts who love their wankel rotary engines (despite being awful). Auto Union was sold because demand for its 2 stroke engined cars was falling by the wayside as West Germany became more affluent. Either another car company buys them (Chrysler perhaps?) or Daimler decides to invest billions of Deutschemarks in moving the brand upmarket to the level of VW and Opel.

Either way, we are now left with just 2 instead of 3 German luxury brands, which is good news for Cadillac, Jaguar, Volvo, Lexus etc.

And the biggest impact, VW might go bankrupt in the 70s. They had become far too dependent on the Beetle and were losing money by 1974 (and being outsold by Opel!) and IOTL they only survived because Audi had experience with front drive water cooled models which resulted in that godsend, the Golf.

 

[Michel Van]

Auto Union was sold because demand for its 2 stroke engined cars was falling by the wayside as West Germany became more affluent.

AUTO UNION was on edge of bankruptcy as Mercedes-Benz sold it to VW (or biggest parts of Company).
What Volkswagen got was Car manufacture that stick to old fashion car production, old technology and 2 stroke engines, its Brand names and unused Technology patents.
And only reason Mercedes-Benz sold them was because VW was on Same way with the Beetle production, still successful in 1960s, but in decline.

Not knowing of Rudolf Leiding and Ludwig Kraus (ex Mercedes-Benz) plans to keep the 12000 workers at Production site at Ingolstadt
It's unlikely that Mercedes-Benz had authorize Kraus the Modification into DKWF103 with M118 engine, more likely they had Shot down AUTO UNION and dispose it.


This video show some of technical backwardness of DKW F102

Compare to DKW F103 aka Audi 60

 

[phx1138]

Ex Audi

You have no idea how right you are.

Also ex vidi... (And ex-Horch? )

 

[Michel Van]

Also ex vidi... (And ex-Horch? )

for those who not understand this joke
Audi was founded by August Horch in 1910, after he was evicted out his own company "A. Horch & CIE" in 1909.
He try to establish the new company as "August Horch Automobilwerke AG" but new owners of "A. Horch & CIE"
send lawyers explaining everything with name Horch belong to them, not August Horch !
So he used the Latin version of his name Horch (eng. to listen) what means Audi

Ironic, his new company Audi and Horch were bought by owner of DKW and were incorporated into Auto Union in 1928...