History

A view back to the past

Our premises in Zwickau, Saxony, is located on historic grounds of the German automobile industry. Here, August Horch founded the August Horch Motorenwerke AG, with 100 employees, on 10 May 1904. Until its renaming to Horchwerke AG Zwickau on 16 February 1918, already 1,800 employees produced 9,100 vehicles.

On 25 April 1910, the company AUDI Automobilwerke GmbH was registered in the commercial register of Zwickau as the second company founded by August Horch. This site is located approximately 200 meters from our company premises.
Paul Daimler, the son of Gottlieb Daimler, worked as chief designer and developer of the HORCH eight cylinder models (type 303) in the Horchwerke AG Zwickau in the period from 1922 to 1930.

From summer 1926 on, the famous automobile technician William Werner was working here as technical director. Later he became board member for technology of the AUTO UNION AG. Approximately 15,000 HORCH cars were produced, of these 12,000 with the legendary straight-eight-engine, between 1922 and 1932. The number of employees increased to 2,400.

On 29 June 1932, the Horchwerke, the AUDI Werke, the Zschopauer Motorradwerke and the Wanderer Werke united to form the AUTO UNION AG under the symbol of the four rings. The individual companies remained as brand designations.

The brand Horch, and thus the factory on our site, joined the luxury class with the types 670-twelve cylinder convertible, 830 and 850, setting strong accents there. In 1938, almost 55 percent of all luxury cars registered in Germany had the crowned letter "H" on their radiators. Approximately 15,000 Horch straight-eight cars were produced under the logo of the four rings of the AUTO UNION AG until the end of peacetime production in 1940.  

Apart from the development and production of Horch luxury cars, a department for the constructions of race cars was opened on 7 March 1933, shortly after the foundation of the AUTO UNION AG. Dr. h.c. Ferdinand Porsche had a strong influence in the development of the legendary "Silver Arrows" with 16-cylinder engines.
In 1935, the famous race driver Bernd Rosemeyer became a star in this racing team. He drove a total of 54 races, of these 32 as winner, for the AUTO UNION. Beyond this, AUTO UNION race cars set 15 world records and 23 class records.

Prof. Robert Eberan von Eberhorst was appointed Director of Testing Department and Chief Race Car Technician on 1 July 1937. He had decisive influence in the development of the Type D 3.0 litres V12 race engines, and thus in the race success of the AUTO UNION.  

After the turbulence of the war years, a repair department for motorcars was initially set up in the former Horchwerk in March 1946; 1,700 people were employed here. After the repair and the re-commissioning of important machines and installations, approximately 850 Type H3 3-ton-lorries were built from 1947 to 1949.
The production of motorcars began in parallel to the lorry production. Approximately 26,000 vehicles of the type IFA F8 (DKW F8) rolled off the assembly line between 1949 and 1955.  They were built in a co-production by Horch (carbody) and Audi (assembly).
The lorry H3A went to serial production in 1950. More than 30,000 units of this type were produced until 1958. Furthermore, few units of the DKW F9, ready to go into production already in 1939/40, were produced in Zwickau between 1949 and 1953.
The production of the motorcar Trabant began in November 1957. For this, the former Horch and Audi factories co-operated under the name of Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau. In total, 3.1 million Trabant cars were produced in their initial basic conception as "people's car of the GDR" until April 1991.

Following the engineering spirit tradition of the Saxon automotive development, we are now facing the constantly growing challenges in serving our customers and business partners.