Post-World War II
Like most German manufacturing, at the onset of World War II the Auto Union plants were retooled for military production, and immediately were subjected heavy bombing for the rest of the war, leaving them all severely damaged.
Over run by the Russian Army, in 1945 on the orders of the Soviet Union military administration, they were dismantled as part of war reparations.[9] Following this, the company’s entire assets were expropriated without compensation.[9] On 17 August 1948 Auto Union AG of Chemnitz was deleted from the commercial register.[9] These actions had the effect of liquidating Germany's Auto Union AG. The remains of the Audi plant of Zwickau became the VEB (for "People Owned Enterprise") Automobilwerk Zwickau, AWZ for short (which translates into English as Automobile factory Zwickau).[10]
The former Audi factory in Zwickau, restarted assembly of the pre-war-models in 1949. These DKW models were renamed to IFA F8 and IFA F9 and were similar to the West German versions. West and East German models were equipped with the traditional and renowned DKW two-stroke engines.
New Auto Union
A new West German head quartered Auto Union was launched in Ingolstadt, Bavaria with loans from the Bavarian state government and Marshall Plan aid.[11] The reformed company was launched 3 September, 1949 and continued DKW's tradition of producing front-wheel drive vehicles with two-stroke engines.[11] This included production of a small but sturdy 125 cc motorcycle and a DKW delivery van, the DKW F 89 L.
After a period of ownership under Daimler-Benz, in 1964 Volkswagen Group acquired the factory in Ingolstadt and the trademark rights of the Auto Union. Two-stroke engines became less popular towards the middle of the 1960s as customers were more attracted to the comfortable four-stroke engines. In September 1965, the DKW F102 got a four-stroke engine implanted and some front and rear styling changes. Volkswagen dumped the DKW brand because of its associations with two-stroke technology, and having classified the model internally as the F103, sold it simply the "Audi." Later delopments of the model were named for their horsepower ratings and sold as the Audi 60, 75, 80, and Super 90, selling until 1972.
In 1969, Auto Union merged with NSU, based in Neckarsulm, near Stuttgart. In the 1950s, NSU had been the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles, but had moved on to produce small cars like the NSU Prinz, the TT and TTS versions of which are still popular as vintage race cars. NSU then focused on new rotary engines based on the ideas of Felix Wankel. In 1967, the new NSU Ro 80 was a space-age car, well ahead of its time in technical details such as aerodynamics, light weight, and safety but teething problems with the rotary engines put an end to the independence of NSU. Today the Neckarsulm plant is used to produce the larger Audi models A6 and A8. The Neckarsulm factory is also home of the quattro GmbH, this subsidiary is responsible for development and production of the Audi high performance cars: the R8 and the "RS" model range.
The mid-sized car that NSU had been working on, the K70, was intended to slot between the rear-engined Prinz models and the futuristic NSU Ro 80. However, Volkswagen took the K70 for its own range, spelling the end of NSU as a separate brand.
0 comments:
Post a Comment