Where Do Audis Come From?

Many people throughout the world think the automobile was invented in the United States. True, Henry Ford is generally considered the father of the American automobile, but automobile invention was happening all over the industrialized world. Besides the USA, many other industrialized nations were mass-producing cars as well. Four such countries were Germany, England, Italy, and Japan. Where each country has a vast history in automobile manufacturing, Germany, for all intents and purposes, is arguably the historical leader in all of Europe. Such worldwide names we hear of most often are: Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, BMW, Fiat, and Renault. Yet ever so infrequently the name not heard worldwide for the first half of the 20th Century was Audi.
With the German economy still reeling from the First World War, Audi and three other businesses began experiencing financially hard times. So, joining together with four other car companies (Audi/DKI, Horch, and Wanderer), they formed a financial alliance which came to be known as Auto Union. Protected by this business umbrella, each car company continued on its own, eventually sharing product ideas and engineering technology.