Maybe this is all covered already and then I apologize but

The name Audi appeared for the first time in 1910 on a company started by
August Horch ( yes, the founder of the Horch cars) and is  a latin form of
his german name Horch - which I btw don�t know the original meaning of,
sorry- that he gave the first car he built but was not allowed to use as a
car badge again when he was kicked out of that company !
The company was an independent car manufacturer up til 1928 when the major
shareholder of  DKW - J.S. Rasmussen - bought majority in Audi too.
1932 Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer mereged into Auto Union and was
nationalized in 1945 .
1949 Auto Union became an independent company again between 1956 -64
Mercedes Benz had stock majority but from 1964 the company is "all VW"
The name Auto Union was used on DKW top model 1000  ( the Auto Union SP1000
in parts of Europe nicknamed "Poor mans Thunderbird" since it had a lot of
the earlybird bodylines BUT  was (un)powered by a three cylinder 981cc (52.5
ci ) twostroke engine ) between 1958-63
The follow up was a sedan sold as DKW or Auto Union that later (1965 - up)
became the Audi 60.
(source:The Complete Encyclopaedia of Motorcars)
From that day on there has been a lot of badge engineering and change of
models between the Audi, NSU and VW cars.
Some examples
The last NSU  model K70 that was to be the VW K70, a car that has always
been looked down upon by purists but actually needs a bit of respect, it was
the beginning of the new FWD era with Dasher/Passat, Rabbit/Golf and so on
actually the cars who set the standard for modern thinking/building along
with the Mini :)
Or the Audi 50 that was later sold as VW Polo/Fox
Today almost all VW, Audi, Skoda and Seat share four different platforms on
top of witch the different bodies are built and maybe the reason for the
namechange rumour is that family has grown a bit too big and lost some of
it�s identity.
Or it�s as easy as a chance to drop some models and get rid of  employees
without uppsetting the union too much - even though they could have picked a
better name than Auto Union if that�s the reason ;-)

Calle

----- Original Message -----
From: <JordanVw@AOL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 8:34 AM
Subject: Re: From the vw news rumor mill

> In a message dated 12/22/04 6:18:29 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> jim@KARMANNGHIA.COM writes:
>
>
>> Interestingly enough is that "Auto Union" was the corporate name for Audi
>> before Volkswagen purchased/merged with them.  For guys like me in the
>> parts
>> biz (who have been around too long), every time I see the Auto Union name
>> I
>> think of Audi, not Volkswagen.  Auto Union really put out some crap/junk
>> in
>> their day.  Talk about going backwards.....
>>
>>
>
> Auto Union was the conglomeration of 4 different car companies, making up
> the
> first "Audi".  they were as follows:  Horch, Wanderer, NSU, and DKW.   all
> 4
> were merged together and formed the company "Auto Union" which as jim
> said,
> later became the "Audi" as we know today.  this is why the Audi logo is
> comprised of four interlocked rings, each ring representing the 4
> companies that
> merged to form Auto Union.
> iirc, Auto Union changed their name to Audi in the late 60's..   "Audi"
> means
> "wind"  in latin? or some language..  vw/audi AG has always been hot to
> name
> their cars some sort of atmospheric condition names....
>
> chris
>