Established | 10 September 2004 |
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Location |
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Coordinates | 50°43′58″N12°29′03″E / 50.73278°N 12.48417°E |
Type | Automobile museum |
Website | August Horch Museum Zwickau (in English) |
The August Horch Museum Zwickau is an automobile museum in Zwickau, Saxony, Germany. Opened in 2004, it covers the history of automobile construction in Zwickau, the early history of Horch and Audi; their eventual incorporation into Auto Union in 1932, and ending with the company's relocation to Ingolstadt after World War II - from where the modern-day Audi company evolved.
The museum also documents the factory's later role in manufacturing the Trabant during the Cold War-era German Democratic Republic, [1] [2] and its eventual rebirth under the ownership of Volkswagen.
The museum is housed within the former factory where August Horch established Audi Automobilwerke GmbH in 1910. Its owner and operator is a non-profit making company owned in equal shares by Audi AG and the town of Zwickau. [1]
Audi AG is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. A subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide.
August Horch was a German engineer and automobile pioneer, the founder of the manufacturing giant that eventually became Audi.
DKW was a German car- and motorcycle-marque. DKW was one of the four companies that formed Auto Union in 1932 and thus became an ancestor of the modern-day Audi company.
Trabant is a series of small cars produced from 1957 until 1991 by former East German car manufacturer VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau. Four models were made: the Trabant 500, Trabant 600, Trabant 601, and the Trabant 1.1. The first model, the 500, was a relatively modern car when it was introduced.
Zwickau is, with around 87,500 inhabitants (2020), the fourth-largest city of Saxony, Germany, after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz and it is the seat of the Zwickau District. The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde, and lies in a string of cities sitting in the densely populated foreland of the Elster and Ore Mountains stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast. From 1834 until 1952, Zwickau was the seat of the government of the south-western region of Saxony.
Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen was a Danish engineer and industrialist.
Auto Union AG was an amalgamation of four German automobile manufacturers, founded in 1932 and established in 1936 in Chemnitz, Saxony. It is the immediate predecessor of Audi as it is known today.
NSU Motorenwerke AG, or NSU, was a German manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles and pedal cycles, founded in 1873. Acquired by Volkswagen Group in 1969, VW merged NSU with Auto Union, creating Audi NSU Auto Union AG, ultimately Audi. The NSU name came from the city it was based in, Neckarsulm, contracted to three letters.
Wanderer was a German manufacturer of bicycles, motorcycles, automobiles, vans and other machinery. Established as Winklhofer & Jaenicke in 1896 by Johann Baptist Winklhofer and Richard Adolf Jaenicke, the company used the Wanderer brand name from 1911, making civilian automobiles until 1941 and military vehicles until 1945.
Horch was a German car manufacturer, which traced its roots to several companies founded in the very late 19th and early 20th century by August Horch.
HQM Sachsenring GmbH is a Zwickau-based company that supplies chassis and body parts to the automotive industry. The company was named after the Sachsenring race track. Founded as VEB Sachsenring after the end of World War II, and operating out of the former Auto Union factory in Zwickau, Sachsenring was one of the few manufacturers of vehicles in East Germany, its best known product being the Trabant, produced between 1957 and 1991. Following the reunification of Germany in 1990, Sachsenring transitioned from a government-owned company under a centrally-planned economy to a private corporation in a free market economy.
Industrieverband Fahrzeugbau, usually abbreviated as IFA, was a conglomerate and a union of companies for vehicle construction in the former East Germany.
The Horch P240 or Sachsenring P240 was a luxury car built by the VEB Kraftfahrzeugwerk Horch Zwickau in East Germany between 1955 and 1959. The early preproduction models can be identified by the grill, which is divided in two and has vertical bars.
Klaus-Detlof von Oertzen was a German businessman and aristocrat. He was involved in the motor industry for most of his long life and is sometimes referred to as the “Father of Volkswagen of South Africa”.
The automotive industry in Germany, is one of the largest employers in the world, with a labor force of over 857,336 (2016) working in the industry.
The Audi 920 is a car introduced in 1938 by the Audi division of Auto Union to replace the Audi Front UW 225. Its engine was a shortened version of the eight-cylinder in-line engine used by sister company Horch. The car was planned to occupy a niche in the Auto Union range between the large Horch products and the middle market cars produced by Wanderer. Audi had no stand-alone production facilities at that time and the car was produced, like its predecessor, at the Horch plant.
The Audi Type P was a small two-door sedan/saloon car introduced by Audi in 1931. It was discontinued by 1932.
Audi museum mobile is an automobile museum owned and operated by Audi AG in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. Opened in 2000, it is devoted to the history of Audi and its predecessors, and is the focal point of the Audi Forum Ingolstadt.
AutoMuseum Volkswagen is an automobile museum in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Opened in April 1985, it is one of two museums in Wolfsburg devoted to the history of the Volkswagen brand; the other is at nearby Autostadt.
The Volkswagen Zwickau-Mosel Plant is an automobile factory in today's Zwickau district of Mosel, Germany. Founded on 26 September 1990, together with the Chemnitz plant and the Transparent Factory, it belongs to Volkswagen Sachsen, based in Zwickau. Currently, the Zwickau plant has about 8,000 employees. Signalling a milestone the last combustion vehicle was produced on 26 June 2020.