Horch · HICONIUM

Zwickau, Germany · est. 1899

Auto Union's crown — the straight-eight aristocrat of prewar Germany.

August Horch built cars twice: first the company that carries his name, then — forced out of it — Audi, its Latin translation. Under Auto Union the Horch marque became Germany's luxury flagship, meeting the supercharged Mercedes-Benz 540 K with five unblown litres of straight-eight.

Models: 0
Top value: —
Period: 1899–

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The house

Auto Union's crown — the straight-eight aristocrat of prewar Germany.

Founded: 1899; A. Horch & Cie opens in Cologne-Ehrenfeld on 14 November 1899; the Zwickau joint-stock works follow on 10 May 1904.

The Audi connection: horch → audi; Forced out of his own company in 1909, August Horch founded a second marque and translated his name into Latin: audi — listen.

Auto Union: One ring of four; From the 1932 merger with Audi, DKW and Wanderer, Horch supplied the combine's luxury car — and more than half of all German eight-cylinder registrations.

The 853: 619 built; The 4,944 cc SOHC straight-eight Sport Cabriolet line, 1935–1939 — 100 PS at launch, 120 PS from 1937; club and auction registers count 619 to 647 Type 853 before the revised 853 A.

Civilian production ends: 1940; The Zwickau works turn to war output; the marque never returns, though the crowned H badge survives in Audi's museum and lineage.

Selected milestones

A bloodline, not a list.

1899
Cologne, then Zwickau
August Horch — once Karl Benz's production manager — starts on his own; by 1904 the company is a Zwickau joint-stock firm.
1909
The founder leaves, twice named
Ousted after a boardroom dispute, Horch founds a new company across town and calls it Audi — his own name, translated.
1932
Auto Union
Horch becomes the luxury marque of the four-ring combine with Audi, DKW and Wanderer.
1935
The 853 arrives
The five-litre straight-eight Sport Cabriolet answers the Mercedes-Benz 540 K without a supercharger — ten main bearings and unhurried authority.
1938
853 A
The revised car standardises the Autobahn overdrive and 120 PS; coachbuilt one-offs by Erdmann & Rossi and Voll & Ruhrbeck crown the line.
1940
The last civilian Horch
Production turns to the war; postwar Zwickau builds Trabants where the eights were once assembled.

What defines Horch

Displacement over devices

Where Stuttgart supercharged, Zwickau added cylinders and bearings — refinement through sheer engineering mass.

The chauffeur optional

The 853 was that rare prewar flagship built to be driven by its owner — a sporting cabriolet on a limousine's mechanicals.

A name that outlived its cars

Horch the marque ended in 1940; horch the word drives on in Latin on every Audi badge.