August Horch couldn't use his own name, so he translated it into Latin. Two decades later, four interlinked rings joined Audi to three other Saxon carmakers.
- Country
-
Germany - Active
- Since 1909
- Founded by
- August Horch
- Website
- Official website ↗
A name he wasn’t allowed to keep
Audi exists because August Horch lost the right to his own name. On 14 November 1899 he founded A. Horch & Cie. in Cologne. The business moved to Reichenbach in Saxony in 1902 and then to Zwickau, where it became a joint-stock company in 1904.
In 1909 Horch left after differences of opinion and set up a new car company. There was a catch. His old firm had registered the name Horch, so he couldn’t use it. The solution was a neat bit of wordplay. In German, “horch!” means “listen!”. In Latin, that’s “audi!”. The first car to carry the Audi name was delivered in May 1910.
Audi made its name in competition early on. Between 1912 and 1914 the Audi Type C won the Austrian Alpine Rally three times in a row.
Four Saxon companies, one badge
The Great Depression hit the Saxon car industry hard. On 29 June 1932, on the initiative of the State Bank of Saxony, Audiwerke AG, Horchwerke AG and Zschopauer Motorenwerke J. S. Rasmussen AG, the maker of DKW, merged into Auto Union AG. The new group also agreed to buy and lease the car division of Wanderer Werke AG. According to Audi, Auto Union was then the second-largest motor vehicle group in Germany.
Each brand kept its name and its own slice of the market. DKW built motorcycles and small cars, Wanderer mid-size cars, Audi deluxe mid-size cars and Horch luxury cars at the very top.
Why the rings are linked
The new company chose four interlinked rings as its emblem. Audi says they stood for the inseparable unity of the four founding companies, one ring for each of Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer. Put simply, the badge is a merger drawn as a picture.
You’ll sometimes see the rings compared with the Olympic rings. The resemblance is easy to spot, but Audi’s own explanation only talks about the four companies.
From Chemnitz to Ingolstadt, and back to the rings
The war ended Auto Union in Saxony. In 1948 Auto Union AG was deleted from the Chemnitz commercial register, but former managers and staff had already started again in Ingolstadt, where Auto Union GmbH was founded on 3 September 1949. Daimler-Benz took a majority stake in 1958, and in 1965 Volkswagenwerk took over. That same year the Audi name came back on a new four-stroke car.
In 1969 Auto Union merged with NSU, a company that started in 1873 as a knitting machine workshop, to form Audi NSU Auto Union AG. In 1985 the company was renamed AUDI AG, so that, as Audi puts it, the company and its product once again shared the same name.
The look of the brand changed along the way. Audi says the Audi name itself took centre stage for a while, first in brown, then in red. From 1978 a black oval with white lettering defined the brand identity. In the 1990s the Ingolstadt company went back to the rings, this time with a three-dimensional look.
Chrome out, flat in
Flat, two-dimensional rings first appeared at Audi in 2016, because three-dimensional rings didn’t work well on digital screens. The idea of putting the flat version on the cars themselves came up in 2019. In November 2022 Audi presented the result: two-dimensional rings in a high-contrast black and white, with no chrome, framed by a thin black border so they look the same whatever the paint or grille colour. A black variant swaps the white for a dark grey. According to Audi, the Q8 e-tron was the first model to carry them.
The geometry barely changed. Audi designer André Georgi said, “We want the four rings to look the same everywhere in the future.”
Cars that carried the rings
Since 1971 Audi has used the slogan “Vorsprung durch Technik”, and many of its landmark cars were about engineering firsts rather than looks alone.
Landmark Audis, decade by decade
- 1910: The first Audi. Delivered in May 1910, the first car to bear the Audi name.
- 1931: DKW Front. A front-wheel-drive small car designed by Audi engineers Walter Haustein and Oskar Arlt and built at the Audi factory in Zwickau.
- 1934: Auto Union Grand Prix car. Developed under an agreement with Ferdinand Porsche, it debuted at the Avus circuit in Berlin in May 1934.
- 1968: Audi 100. Presented in Ingolstadt in November 1968, with front-wheel drive and a weight-saving body.
- 1980: Audi quattro. Unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1980. Its four-wheel drive went on to win world rally titles from 1982 to 1984.
- 1989: Audi 100 TDI. According to Audi, the first diesel passenger car with direct fuel injection.
Today Audi is part of the Volkswagen Group. Before that, from 1958 to 1965, Auto Union belonged to Daimler-Benz, the company behind Mercedes-Benz. And the Grand Prix car of 1934 links the rings to Ferdinand Porsche, whose name lives on in Porsche. For more early badges like the Auto Union rings, see our classic car logos.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the Audi logo have four rings?
Each ring stands for one of the four companies that merged into Auto Union AG in 1932: Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer. Audi says the linked rings represent their inseparable unity.
What does the name Audi mean?
It is the Latin translation of Horch, the founder’s family name. “Horch!” means “listen!” in German, and “audi!” means the same in Latin. August Horch used it in 1909 because his old company owned the rights to the name Horch.
When did the Audi logo become flat?
Audi started using two-dimensional rings in digital media in 2016. In November 2022 it announced flat black and white rings for its cars too, starting with the Q8 e-tron.
Who owns Audi?
Audi has belonged to Volkswagen since 1965, when Volkswagenwerk took over Auto Union. The company has been called AUDI AG since 1985 and is based in Ingolstadt.
Horch, translated: the facts
- Founded
- 1909
- Founder
- August Horch
- Country
- Germany
- Headquarters
- Ingolstadt, Germany
- Parent company
- Volkswagen Group
- Current emblem
- Four interlinked rings in flat black and white, introduced on cars in 2022
- Known for
- quattro all-wheel drive and Vorsprung durch Technik
- Website
- Official website ↗
