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From YourSITE.com Vintage News
When Audi production first began 100 years ago, the company was instantly a specialist in making right-hand-drive cars. Every Audi car was right-hand-drive until 1921, when the brand first publicly demonstrated its now famous flair for ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ by pioneering left-hand-drive 16 years before Germany officially legislated for it in 1938. Audi – which formally began life as a car manufacturer on July 16, 1909 – built an entire range of right-hand-drive models before initiating the change to the left. It was not until 1922 that left-hand-drive began to take hold in Germany, and even then the new configuration was a feature of just ten per cent of the country’s cars. Proliferation quickly followed – just one year later this total had risen to 25 per cent. Within its first decade as a manufacturer Audi quickly established a principal range of six models with engines offering four, six and eight cylinders. Of these it was the Audi Type K, built between 1921 and 1926, which took the Berlin Motor Show by storm when it made its world debut with left-hand-drive. The Type K was the first car in Germany to go on sale with a left-mounted steering wheel, and also featured a conventional floor mounted gear shift which was centrally located alongside the car’s handbrake.
In all, 74 countries around the World now drive on the left in right-hand-drive cars. Globally almost all nations began by driving on the left, and there was a gradual transition to driving on the right in left-hand-drive vehicles. Curiously one of the first nations to move from the left to the right hand side of the road was the United States, which, as early as 1792, first passed new laws in Pennsylvania. New York followed in 1804 and New Jersey in 1813. In Europe, Italy first began its switch in 1912 but it took until 1926 for the entire country to conform. Spain was also using both sides of the road, depending on region, until 1924, as was Austria, until she eventually conformed along with Hungary and the then Czechoslovakia as late as 1939. Europe’s very last nation to officially adopt left hand drive cars or right hand driving was Sweden as recently as 1967. The First Audi Cars Audi began its life without the universally known four rings emblem and with a range of open cars which all featured cabriolet roofs. Its first major model, the Type A, featured a right-mounted steering wheel, as did its entire range at the time.
About Audi, UK Audi UK has enjoyed an exceptionally rapid rise to prominence in the premium sector. In 2000 just over 43,000 Audi models found homes in the UK, and from that point until 2008 the brand has continually broken annual sales records, successfully passing the milestone 100,000 sales mark in 2007 and 2008, when it ended the year with a record 4.7% market share from 100,845 sales. Globally, the brand exceeded 1 million deliveries for the first time in its history in 2008, marking the occasion with its best ever revenue figure and a record profit-before-tax total of 3.177 billion Euros (£2.94 billion) in the process. With its programmes for both road and race cars the brand continues to maintain its dramatic trajectory. On the road it is extending its reach into important new segments with strong offerings such as the A3 Cabriolet, A5 Cabriolet, Q5, RS 6 and R8, while at the same time bolstering its appeal to its existing customer base with core models like the all-new A4 and A4 Avant. On the race circuit Audi Sport will aspire to secure its ninth Le Mans victory in 2009 with the R15 TDI - a completely new sports prototype powered by a newly developed ten-cylinder diesel engine.
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