August Horch (12 October 1868 – 3 February 1951) was a German

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

and

automobile A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...

pioneer, the founder of the manufacturing giant that eventually became

Audi Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. A subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide. The origins of the compa ...

Beginnings

Horch was born in Winningen, Rhenish Prussia. His initial trade was as a blacksmith, and then was educated at (Mittweida Technical College). After receiving a degree in engineering, he worked in shipbuilding. Horch worked for

Karl Benz Carl (or Karl) Friedrich Benz (; born Karl Friedrich Michael Vaillant; 25 November 1844 – 4 April 1929) was a German engine designer and automotive engineer. His Benz Patent-Motorwagen from 1885 is considered the first practical modern automo ...

from 1896, before founding '' A. Horch & Co.'' in November 1899, in Ehrenfeld, Cologne, Germany.

Manufacturing

The first Horch automobile was built in 1901. The company moved to Reichenbach in 1902 and

Zwickau Zwickau (; ) is the fourth-largest city of Saxony, Germany, after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz, with around 88,000 inhabitants,. The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: ''Zwickauer Mulde''; progression: ), ...

in 1904. Horch left the company in 1909 after a dispute, and set up in competition in Zwickau. His new firm was initially called ''Horch Automobil-Werke GmbH'', but following a legal dispute over the ''Horch'' name, he decided to make another automobile company. (The court decided that ''Horch'' was a registered trademark on behalf of August's former partners and August was not entitled to use it any more). Consequently, Horch named his new company '' Audi Automobilwerke GmbH'' in 1910, ''Audi'' being the Latinization of Horch.

Post Audi

Horch left Audi in 1920 and went to Berlin and took various jobs. He published his autobiography, ''I Built Cars ()'' in 1937. He also served on the board of Auto Union, the successor to Audi Automobilwerke GmbH he had founded. Horch remained an honorary executive at Auto Union during and after its reincorporation in

Ingolstadt Ingolstadt (; Austro-Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian: ) is an Independent city#Germany, independent city on the Danube, in Upper Bavaria, with 142,308 inhabitants (as of 31 December 2023). Around half a million people live in the metropolitan ...

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

in the late 1940s until his death in 1951, ultimately not living to see the later resurrection of his Audi brand a decade later under the ownership of

Volkswagen Volkswagen (VW; )English: , . is a German automotive industry, automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Established in 1937 by German Labour Front, The German Labour Front, it was revitalized into the global brand it ...

. He was an honorary citizen of Zwickau and had a street named for his Audi cars in both Zwickau and his birthplace Winningen. He was made an honorary professor at Braunschweig University of Technology. There is an ''August Horchstrasse'' (August Horch Street) at Audi's main manufacturing plant in Ingolstadt.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Horch, August 1868 births 1951 deaths People from Mayen-Koblenz People from the Rhine Province Audi people German automotive pioneers German industrialists Auto Union Engineers from Rhineland-Palatinate Horch German founders of automobile manufacturers