The saloon that resurrected the German brand
Today, Audi is one of the car manufacturers with the highest reputation and one of the benchmarks when it comes to technological innovation. But it was not always like this and there was a model that marked a turning point in the brand: the Audi 100 and this is its incredible story.
In the 1960s, Audi was not going through a good time. In reality, it had already been dragging on for decades of economic hardship, after having been one of the great brands during the 1930s, under the name of Auto Union, starring in a strong rivalry with Mercedes in competition, giving rise to the famous legend of the silver arrows.
Within the Auto Union Ag group, Audi represented the luxury brand in the midsize segment. Above it was Horch, which made the high-end models, while Wanderer took care of the medium vehicles and DKW produced motorcycles and utility vehicles.
After the Second World War, Auto Union was expropriated by the Soviet authorities, which led the company’s senior leaders to move to the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt, where on September 3, 1949 they founded the new Auto Union GmbH.
From here, the brand with the four rings began a long and hard road until its resurgence, always in the shadow of the two great German luxury brands, BMW and Mercedes.
The incredible story of the Audi 100: the first generation
That long road culminated with the arrival of the Audi 100 in 1968. To do this, Volkswagen decided to sacrifice another historical manufacturer in Germany, NSU, a very technologically avant-garde brand that had had some failures. Instead, it focused on Audi to launch a more modern model than the existing Beetle.
The Audi 100 sported the Auto Union four-ring logo on the front grille, one of the hallmarks that had been lost. It was a fairly conventional vehicle, without major innovations, beyond the fact that it had front-wheel drive.
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The first generation of the Audi 100 stood out for having a good manufacturing quality, a spacious and luxurious interior and offering great reliability. Concepts that have been repeated in the German brand to this day.
Aesthetically, it was a four-door saloon with a striking design, in the form of a coupé, something that was already fashionable in the late 1960s. The side view drew an attractive fastback-type silhouette, with the presence of false gills. on the C-pillar, a truncated tail and headlights reminiscent of the Fiat Dino Coupé.
Mechanically, it was powered by a four-cylinder engine placed in front of the front axle, which drove the same front wheels. This made it an easy car to drive, with good traction, but with quite understeer behavior.
The next generations of the Audi 100
The first generation of the Audi 100 remained on the market for eight years, until 1976, during which time it returned the Ingolstadt brand to the place it had lost.
The second generation appeared with a more angular body and a larger size that gave it, above all, greater roominess on board. In addition, the new Audi 100 marks the arrival of a five-cylinder engine that became one of the hallmarks of the brand, as would the quattro drive later on.
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The design of the sedan no longer had the coupé air of the first installment, but instead opted for a sedan-like aesthetic. In addition, it offered an Avant variant, with five doors.
Although this generation made a significant leap in quality, the public still saw the Audi 100 as a model below the BMW and Mercedes. This led the brand to make a more powerful and luxurious version, with a 170 hp turbo engine called the Audi 200. With its top speed of 202 km/h, it was the most powerful front-wheel drive car in the world at the time. .
In 1982, the third generation arrived with a completely revolutionary design in terms of aerodynamics, with windows completely flush with the door frames. It was accompanied by a larger Avant version that improved in practicality.
This third installment premiered the diesel and turbodiesel engines, as well as the quattro drive, inherited from the Audi Quattro.
The Audi A6 is born
In 1990, the fourth generation of the Audi 100 arrived, at a time when the brand with the four rings was already fully established in the market and was perceived as an alternative to Mercedes and BMW. The German triple entente was already present.
During the 90s, Audi decided to change the name of its models, with the premiere of the Audi A4. This meant that, in 1995, when the Audi 100 reached the middle of its commercial life, the new name A6 appeared.
Audi A6, this was its most groundbreaking generation
In this way, the Audi A6 was born, one of the benchmarks in the luxury saloon segment and a model that has become one of the brand’s emblems in recent decades.
The fourth stage of the Audi 100 introduced V6 engines for the first time in an Audi, as well as the first high-performance variant, the Audi 100 S4, with a 5-cylinder, 20-valve turbo engine, accompanied by a peculiar braking system with floating disks.
Later, this more performance version was replaced by the Audi A6 S4 Plus, which already had a V8 engine.
Today, the Audi A6 has high-performance versions that reach 600 hp in the RS6 Avant version, as well as a complete range of diesel and gasoline engines, in which there is no lack of electrified options. It is also a technological benchmark. But none of this would have been possible without the 1968 Audi 100.
