The creation of Audi as a premium German car brand is one of the great industrial achievements of the post-World War II era. In 1965 Auto Union, now based in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, revived the prewar Audi name, though shortly afterwards the group was bought by Volkswagen. In 1969 this group merged with NSU (forming Audi NSU Auto Union AG), and Audi was moved steadily upmarket, becoming the premium brand for the group and a name that would come to rival BMW and Mercedes. Through the 1970s and 1980s Audi would be steered largely by Ferdinand Piëch (1937–), whose judgment and instincts proved almost flawless. Piëch, of course, is a grandson of Ferdinand Porsche and grew up steeped in ‘car culture’.
Design has been integral to the success of Audi and was directed at Ingolstadt by Hartmut Warkuss – an exceptional design director and manager who knew how to make the best use of many talented younger designers (including ex-Royal College of Art graduates Martin Smith and Peter Schreyer). The design department was also integrated very cleverly with the engineering department and together they worked to ensure that every model had a new technical edge, for Audi explicitly noted that Germany’s high labour and social costs made the cars expensive, ‘so we have to justify the price with excellent technology’. One such feature was full-time four-wheel drive in a saloon car (a first for series production). Another was the body development that made the renewed Audi 100 one of the most aerodynamically efficient full saloon cars on the market, with a drag coefficient of 0.30 – still a good figure today.
The rebirth of Audi in the teeth of competition from existing high-end German brands was a brilliant achievement. Audi sought always to give each model a particular technical edge.