HAPPY CENTENARY AUDI!

My 7-hour stint at the fabled Kayalami race track last month seemed to fly past as though it was only a 7-minute jab. They do say time flies when you’re having fun and that’s exactly what happened when we were invited by Audi South Africa as part of their 100 Year Celebrations. Of course this had already begun a couple of weeks before at the Roy Hesketh track where we got to play in the brand new S4.

The Kayalami excursion began with a technical briefing by the guys at the 4Rings Audi Driving Experience. Often as car journos we tend to think we know it all and from the quiz thrown upon us by the instructor we actually don’t. Yes I do confess, but that’s what the course does; it teaches you. So we spent a good part of an hour going over theory about such things as quattro AWD, steering angles, under steer, counter-steer and so on. For some like myself it was all revision (there I go again) but others were quite new to such words.

Having “learnt” all this we took to the dry tarmac and worked our way through, first the S4 and then the S5 Coupe. Since Roy Hesketh I’ve had a decent appreciation for the supercharged sedan and Kayalami proved to be an even more fun experience. The S5 is still a funky noise-maker and 5 of those things lined up on a straight beats any orchestra you can think of.

You’ve probably already read about the R8 V10 that presented itself to me on that day. The car required its own post-lunch briefing from 4Rings which didn’t take too long. Most of it was peppered with warnings like “drive safely” and “this is a beast” anyway. I dare say company founder August Horch would probably have dreamt about the R8 V10 or a similar car in his brand’s future since he was such a racing fanatic himself.

While Horch may not have known it at the time, the year 1909 was a big one of him. It would in fact, turn out to be the most important of his life as he established the company which would soon be called Audi that year. Although the Audi brand itself didn’t come into play until much later, various times it was used alongside other family names like Auto Union, DKW, Horch and Wanderer. The word Audi is Latin for “hark” or Horch in German.

Here’s an interesting bit you might not have heard before: at some point (between 1959 and 1964) Audi was owned by Daimler-Benz, makers of Mercedes-Benz cars.

Mzansi’s history with Audi began in 1968 when Volkswagen SA in cooperation with Audi owner Auto Union GmbH, began producing the Super 90 at the Uitenhage plant.

Although a car like the Quattro or ur-Quattro was quite recognisable in the country, it wasn’t until the 100 and the 500 series Audis that Mzansi began taking the brand more seriously.

Since then it’s grown quite considerably and has become one of the top-three premium brands, just as it is in most other markets around the world. In fact the current Audi crop of sports cars was the best-selling in its class in 2008.

Happy centenary Audi. May we see another.