Germany with its incredible German cars is beyond doubt the leading automobile haven in the world. The country is known for its many firsts; such as four-stroke engine, which was devised by Nikolous Otto in the year 1876 among others. From Porsche, BMW, Audi, and Volkswagen to Mercedes Benz – all these manufacturing companies have factories set up all over the world and have millions of happy fans too.
Audi
Audi
- The company was founded in 1899 and Horch produced the first car in the year 1901.
- After about 8-years in 1909, Horch was forced by the board of directors to leave the organization
- In 1910, Horch established the Audi Company. He couldn’t use his name due to legal reasons and chose ‘Audi’, which was the Latin paraphrase of his name.
- At the end of 2nd World War in 1945, Audi, which now belonged to Auto Union produced Trabant Cars
- Daimler-Benz in the year 1963 acquired control over Auto Union and the following year the company was sold to Volkswagen
- Audi 100 was one of the most successful cars manufactured by the company from 1968 – 1976
- The Audi Quattro, manufactured from 1980 – 1991 had 2144 cc engine and 11,000 cars were made.
- In 1985, the name of the company was abbreviated to ‘Audi AG’
- The Audi range produced in 1991 included the Audi 200, 100, 90, 80 and Audi V8
- In 2007, the models produced include A8, A6, A4, A3, TT, R8 and Q7
BMW
BMW
- Initially, BMW was intended to be the manufacturer of aircrafts until it got the contract to produce V12 engines. The Company Bayrischen Motoren Werke in the year 1928 acquired the factory ‘Dixi’ and manufactured their first model that year, which was BMW-Dixi 3/15
- From 1933 to 1939, BMW made cars including models 328, 327, 303 and the sedan 335.
- After the II World War, the company manufactured the model 501 and from 1955 – 1959 BMW manufactured the Isetta.
- The other models produced in the 1950s include 507, 503, 502 and 600.
- Between 1977 – 2005 BMW manufactured almost 9.5 million of cars of Series-3
- The models of 2007 include Z4, X5, X3, M6, M5 and the series 7, 6, 5 and 3.
Mercedes
Mercedes
- The Daimler-Benz Company was founded in the year 1926.
- The company produced 5,018 cc 500 K supercharged models from 1934 to 36. Later from 1936 to 39, 5,401 cc – 540 editions were produced.
- The pontoon series gradually replaced the pre-war designed model (170 V) in 1953. The models were 220, 219, 190 and 180.
- The other cars manufactured after the Word War 2 ended in 1945 to 1980 were 600 450 SEL, 350, 300, 280, 250 and 230.
- From 1965 – 2005, the company produced S, M, E, C, B and A Class cars and also the SL, CLS, CLK and Vaneo models.
- Diamler-Benz and Chrysler merged in 1998 to form Diamler-Chrysler AG.
The vehicles from Merceds-Benz have been produced or assembled in various countries including Thailand, Malaysia, South - Africa, U.K, U.S.A, Turkey, Egypt, China, India, Brazil and Austria
Volkswagen
Volkswagen
- Ferndinand Porche in the middle of 1930s gained a contract to build the ‘Peoples Car’ by Hitler.
- With the help of Mercedes-Benz, finally in the year 1939 Porche built thirty pre-production cars. These cars were initially known as Kdf-Wagen and later on by the name VW Kafer.
- Volkwagen Type 1 was manufactured in 1945
- In 1967, this car was referred to as ‘Beetle’ by the company.
- The number of Beetles produced in 1972 surpassed 15 million
- Originally, the beetle had 1,131 cc engines and this was later on changed to 1,584 cc.
- Volkwagen introduced the luxury car the ‘Phaeton’ in 2002
- The cars produced by Volkwagen in 2007 include Jetta, Golf, Fox, Eox, Phaeton, Touran, Touareg, Sharan, Polo, Passat and New Beetle.
- Wartburg, Trabant, Messerschnitt IFA, Heinkel, Glas, Ghia, Borgward, Amphicar, Zundapp etc are the other famous German car manufacturers.
Be it advanced technology or high performance, German cars definitely top the list. They have their manufacturing units and showrooms all across the world.
