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Performance car hire UK Audi
Audi A3   Audi A4
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Few companies can have had such a complex background as Audi.Founder August Horch built his first car, a twin-cylinder 4/5 shaft drive vehicle, in 1899, which, logically enough, was christened Horch. Ten years later, following a disagreement with fellow directors, he left to set up a new factory. But for obvious reasons, Horch was not allowed to use his own name. Horch translates from German as 'listen' or 'hark!' So Horch chose the Latin equivalent: Audi. In 1928, JS Rasmussen, the founder of DKW, took a controlling interest in Audi. Among Audi's engines were some supplied by Rickenbacker in the USA , used in the Audi Dresden and Zwickau limousines. When the Nazi party took power in Germany in 1932, Audi, with Horch, Wanderer and DKW were formed into Auto Union, with the four interlinked ring badge still used by Audi today. German engineering now enjoyed an era of some prominence, and Audi's first front-wheel-drive car, the Type 225, appeared the following year. Another product of the Auto Union were the fearsome V16, mid-engined single seaters developed to rival the Mercedes-Benz on the European race circuits. At the end of the war, Auto Union's factories around Zwickau were in what became East Germany , later to produce the archaic little Trabant. It was not until 1965 that rising prosperity in western Germany allowed the Audi name to resurface, using a four-cylinder engine and front-wheel-drive system developed by DKW. Audi was first owned by Mercedes-Benz and then sold to Volkswagen. The range developed quickly, steering away from the less expensive VW models. It was at this time that Audi acquired a somewhat down-market image in its domestic market, in sharp contrast to its image in the UK today. In 1977 a team from Audi, headed by Walter Treser, developed a new 4wd system for VW's Iltis 'jeep'. Unofficially, Treser's team fitted the Iltis system to an Audi 80. Three years later Audi launched the turbocharged quattro, the car which would come to dominate world rallying and make the quattro name a motoring talisman. The quattro system later appeared on very much more mundane vehicles, but it started a whole new era of high-speed 4wd models a prompted many other makers to offer 4wd versions of ordinary saloons. Few managed to share Audi's success in this market, and Audi began to emphasise its heritage of technical achievement with the famous advertising strapline 'vorsprung durch technik' (leadership through technology). In the 1980s Audi pioneered fully galvanised bodyshells, giving a 10-year anti-corrosion warranty. This was taken a step further in the spring of 1996 when the revolutionary A8 was launched. Instead of the usual steel monocoque construction, an aluminium 'skeleton' was used, clad in aluminium panels. As well as being lighter than an all-steel body and corrosion resistant, the V8 engined A8 was stronger. However, this technology has been slow to spread to other models or makers. By the mid-1990s, Audi had assumed a more closely defined place in the increasingly successful VW empire as its more up-market brand. Sharing its model platforms with other vehicles in the VW group (VW, Skoda, Seat, Audi) the group, it achieved both cost savings and outstandingly good products, differentiated by styling, detailing, price and equipment. Thus the A4, 1995 replacement for the successful 80, shared its platform with the VW Passat. An Avant estate followed in spring 1996, and the A4 became highly successful, popular in the UK in the small executive car market and with used buyers. In 1997, the larger 100 gave way to the new A6. Audi also introduced a small three-door model, the A3 in 1996, based on the Golf platform. Although this did not represent the value for money of its larger siblings its build quality has found it buyers. In 1998 ( UK launch was 1999), Audi turned many heads with its TT coupe. Looking remarkably like a concept car, and most at home on Germany 's fast curvy roads, this bold sports coupe enjoyed confident styling and superb performance. A convertible version added later somehow looked stylistically incomplete. Audi did a good job of damage limitation with a recall to add a rear spoiler after reports that the vehicles could flip over unexpectedly at high speeds, though in truth this problem should hardly have affected UK drivers. 2000 sees Audi follow Mercedes' lead into the small car market with the arrival of the tiny A2, whose unusual looks nevertheless give it A4-order interior space. It uses the aluminium technology first seen in the A8, so it is light and strong, but the extra economy on offer does not fully compensate for the higher price. The technology has been advanced since the A8 launch to the point that it is possible to use it on small cars. For the less economy-conscious, 2000 also sees Audi try to capitalise on its quattro brand with the launch of the Allroad Quattro. This is a semi off-roader, based on the A6, rather in the style of a Subaru; it will likely go head-to-head with the forthcoming from BMW X5. The quattro system is also present in the Audi RS4 due for launch this summer: it promises to be a barnstorming version of the A4, with 380bhp and 0-60 in under 5 seconds. That's a lot of performance for a car of its size.
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