Audi

The four rings represent a 1932 merger of four previously independent Saxon manufacturers (Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer) into Auto Union, and the badge has outlived every one of the original four as an active marque.^[1] The Audi name itself is a Latinisation: founder August Horch, forced out of the company that still bore his own name after a dispute with his business partners, translated “horch” (German for “listen”) into Latin as “audi” for his new venture in 1909. Volkswagen Group has owned Audi since 1966, and the brand has spent the decades since as Volkswagen’s sportier, more technically forward counterpart to Mercedes-Benz and BMW: permanent four-wheel drive under the quattro name from 1980, and a long run of five-cylinder and turbocharged engines that started on the rally stage.