Audi

Audi AG (Xetra: NSU) is a German manufacturer of automobiles marketed under the Audi brand.
The company is headquartered in Ingolstadt, Germany, and has been a wholly owned (99.55%) subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group (Volkswagen AG) since 1964. Volkswagen Group relaunched the Audi brand with the 1965 introduction of the Audi 60 range. Shortly thereafter the name was acquired as part of Volkswagen's purchase of the Auto Union assets from former owner, Daimler-Benz.
The company name is based on the surname of the founder August Horch, the name itself an English cognate with the English word "hark", meaning listen — which, when translated into Latin, becomes Audi.

The company traces its origins back to 1909 and August Horch. The first Audi automobile, the Audi Type A 10 / 22 hp Sport-Phaeton, was produced in 1910 in Zwickau.
In 1909, Horch was forced out of the company he had founded. He then started a new company in Zwickau and continued using the Horch brand. His former partners sued him for trademark infringement and the German Supreme Court (Reichsgericht in Berlin) finally determined that the Horch brand belonged to his former company.
August Horch was barred from using his own family name in his new car business, so he called a meeting with his best business friends, Paul and Franz Fikentscher from Zwickau. At the apartment of Franz Fikentscher they discussed how to come up with a new name for the company. During this meeting Franz's son was quietly studying Latin in a corner of the room. Several times he looked like he was on the verge of saying something but would just swallow his words and continue working, until he finally blurted out, "Father – audiatur et altera pars... wouldn't it be a good idea to call it audi instead of horch?" "Horch!" in German means "Hark!" or "hear", which is "Audi" in Latin (compare audible). The idea was enthusiastically accepted by everyone attending the meeting.
Audi started with a 2,612 cc (2.6 litre) four cylinder model[clarification needed] followed by a 3564 cc (3.6 L) model, as well as 4680 cc (4.7 L) and 5720 cc (5.7L) models. These cars were successful even in sporting events. The first six cylinder model,[clarification needed] 4655 cc (4.7 L) appeared in 1924.
August Horch left the Audi company in 1920 for a high position at the ministry of transport, but he was still involved with Audi as a member of the board of trustees. In September 1921, Audi became the first German car manufacturer to present a production car, the Audi Type K, with left-handed drive. Left-hand drive spread and established dominance during the 1920s because it provided a better view of oncoming traffic, making overtaking safer.

BMW

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (info) (BMW), (literally English: Bavarian Motor Works) is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the MINI brand, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands. BMW is known for its performance and luxury vehicles.

After World War I, BMW was forced to cease aircraft (engine) production by the terms of the Versailles Armistice Treaty. The company consequently shifted to motorcycle production in 1923 once the restrictions of the treaty started to be lifted, followed by automobiles in 1928–29.
The circular blue and white BMW logo or roundel is portrayed by BMW as the movement of an aircraft propeller, to signify the white blades cutting through the blue sky – an interpretation that BMW adopted for convenience in 1929, twelve years after the roundel was created. The emblem evolved from the circular Rapp Motorenwerke company logo, from which the BMW company grew, combined with the white and blue colors of the flag of Bavaria, reversed to produce the BMW roundel. However, the origin of the logo being based on the movement of a propeller is in dispute, according to an article recently posted by the New York times, quoting "At the BMW Museum in Munich, Anne Schmidt-Possiwal, explained that the blue-and-white company logo did not represent a spinning propeller, but was meant to show the colors of the Free State of Bavaria."

Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of luxury automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. It is currently a division of the parent company, Daimler AG (formerly DaimlerChrysler AG), after previously being owned by Daimler-Benz. Mercedes-Benz has its origins in Karl Benz's creation of the first petrol-powered car, the Benz Patent Motorwagen, patented in January 1886, and by Gottlieb Daimler and engineer Wilhelm Maybach's conversion of a stagecoach by the addition of a petrol engine later that year. The Mercedes automobile was first marketed in 1901 by Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft. The first Mercedes-Benz brand name vehicles were produced in 1926, following the merger of Karl Benz's and Gottlieb Daimler's companies into the Daimler-Benz company. Mercedes-Benz has introduced many technological and safety innovations that have become common in other vehicles several years later. Mercedes is the world's oldest automotive brand still in existence today.

The newly created automobile company, Mercedes-Benz also needed a new image symbolizing its enterprise union. The iconic three-pointed star is pervasive and unmistakably recognized around the world. But its design has evolved in many ways since the two companies merged in 1926. One early logo was trademarked in the United States on Friday, 16 August 1929. An application was filed for Mercedes-Benz by Daimler-Benz Aktiengesellschaft of Berlin, Germany with the USPTO. Their application was filed in the primary class of non-metallic building materials and provide a description that included, "automotive vehicles, as follows: passenger cars and freight trucks; parts of and accessories to said vehicles…"

Porsche

Porsche Automobil Holding SE, usually shortened to Porsche SE, a Societas Europaea or European Public Company, is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury high performance automobiles, which is majority-owned by the Piëch and Porsche families. Porsche SE is headquartered in Zuffenhausen, a city district of Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg.
Porsche SE has two main subsidiaries – Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG (which stands for Doktor Ingenieur honoris causa Ferdinand Porsche Aktiengesellschaft), often shortened to Porsche AG, and Volkswagen AG. Porsche AG is the subsidiary of Porsche SE which is responsible for the actual production and manufacture of the Porsche automobile line, and Volkswagen AG is the parent company of the Volkswagen Group, which includes (but is not limited to) the automotive marques Audi, Bentley Motors, Bugatti Automobiles and Lamborghini.

Lamborghini

Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A., commonly referred to as Lamborghini, is an Italian automaker based in the small township of Sant'Agata Bolognese. The company was founded in 1963 by manufacturing magnate Ferruccio Lamborghini, who set out to create a refined grand touring car.
The company's first offerings, the 350GT and 400GT, were noted for their refinement, power, and comfort. Lamborghini gained wide acclaim in 1966 for the Miura sports coupé, which established mid-engine design as the standard layout for high-performance cars of the era. After a decade of rapid growth, hard times befell the company in the mid-1970s, as sales plunged in the wake of the 1973 world financial downturn and oil crisis. After a bankruptcy and three changes in ownership, Lamborghini came under the corporate umbrella of the Chrysler Corporation. The American company failed to make Lamborghini profitable and sold it in 1994. Lamborghini would remain unprofitable throughout the 1990s, before being sold by its Indonesian owners to AUDI AG, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, a German automotive concern. Audi's ownership marked the beginning of a period of stability and increased productivity for Lamborghini, with sales increasing nearly tenfold over the course of the 2000s. A world financial crisis in the late 2000s saw Lamborghini's sales cut in half, leading CEO Stephen Winkelmann to predict continued poor sales for supercar makers.
Assembly of Lamborghini cars continues to take place at the automaker's ancestral home in Sant'Agata Bolognese, where engine and automobile production lines run side-by-side at the company's single factory. Each year, the facility produces less than 3,000 examples of the four models offered for sale, the V10-powered Gallardo coupé and roadster and the flagship V12-powered Murciélago coupé and roadster. The range is occasionally complemented by limited-edition variants of the four main models, such as the Reventón and a number of Superleggera trim packages.