Audi and Mercedes... any relationships?! - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

MercFan · #1 07-30-2009, 11:01 AM

This is a silly question... I'm tired of hearing about it from my dad, so I wanted to see if there is any truth to this: it it true that Audi cars are made by a division of Daimler AG/Mercedes or any other Mercedes afiliated group or are they separate companies? Does anybody know? If there is any truth to that relationship plz let me know - my sanity (if not my life) depends on it...

Thx -
James

MattBelliveau · #2 07-30-2009, 11:04 AM

Audi and VW are made by the same company (and newer VW parts prices certainly reflect that...). I don't think there is any affiliation with Daimler or MB with Audi or VW.

tbomachines · #3 07-30-2009, 11:28 AM

They're both German, but thats like saying GM and Ford are the same. I can't think of any possible relationship, they have been competitors since the early days.

catmandoo62 · #4 07-30-2009, 02:30 PM

i always thought porsche,audi and vw were like GM.different divisions but basically same company.

compu_85 · #5 07-30-2009, 02:55 PM

VW and Audi are the same company. Well really VW died and was taken over by Audi with the introduction of the watercooled models, but that's another story

Porsche has done some engineering work for VW, and they share the Touareg SUV, but they were not part of VW until recently.

Comparing a 1987 Audi 5000 and 1987 S or E class will show they are totally different companies. The Audi is like a very fancy 1985 Jetta with more fluff and Cadillac automatic climate control glomed on. The Mercedes is not

-J

Hatterasguy · #6 07-30-2009, 02:58 PM

Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft is I beleive the 3rd largest auto company in the world, behind GM and Toyota. They own several brands, amoung them Audi, Lamborghini and recently worked out a deal to buy Porsche. After Porsche bought most of their publicly traded stock and pulled off a really cool move with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group

"Although it operates worldwide, Volkswagen Group's core market is continental Europe. Of its car brands, Volkswagen Passenger Cars is its mainstream marque, and the Group's major subsidiaries also include well-known car marques like Audi, SEAT, Škoda, Lamborghini, Bentley, and Bugatti. The Group also has operations in commercial vehicles, owning Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, along with a controlling stake in Scania AB and a 29.9% stake in MAN SE."

Daimler AG is a large transportation company that has interests in commercial trucking, power, and equipment. They also own Mercedes Benz which is the road car division. However Daimler makes most of their money on trucking, profit wise Mercedes trucks are the money maker for the Mercedes brand. The cars don't make them that much.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimler_AG
Google is your friend.

Mark DiSilvestro · #7 07-31-2009, 01:16 AM

There WAS a link!
In 1932, four German marques, DKW, Wanderer, Audi and Horch, merged to form Auto-Union. The Audi and Horch were expensive cars that provided some competition for Mercedes by the late 1930s, while the DKW was a tiny two-stroke powered economy-car, that pioneered FWD in 1931.
After WWII, only the least expensive Auto-Union marque, the DKW, was able to resume production. Those DKWs continued to be small FWD cars, powered by two or three-cylinder two-stroke engines, but priced considerably higher than the contemporary VW Beetle.
In 1958, Daimler-Benz AG purchased Auto-Union and unsucsessfully attempted to sell DKWs in the US.
By 1965, Daimer-Benz engineers had designed a high-compression, four-stroke, slant-four to replace the two-stroke DKW powerplant in the final DKW body. That same year, VW purchased Auto-Union from Daimler-Benz, and it was that four-stroke powered, FWD DKW-body that VW continued production as the postwar Audi.

Happy Motoring, Mark