Verse 1)Come gather 'round, you travelers, and hear a tale of old,Of a clever German engineer whose heart was brave and bold.In 18 ninety-nine, young August Horch would start his car career,But partners pushed him from his shop before the tenth new year.He took his name, translated it, to clear his legal claim,And in the Latin word for "listen," Audi found its name.(Verse 2)The Type A rolled in ten-past-one, out on the cobblestone,But twenty years of roaring roads left Audi all alone.The Great Depression shook the land, the bank accounts ran dry,And four historic Saxon brands watched ruin drawing nigh.So Audi joined with Wanderer, with Horch and DKW,To form a mighty Union that would see the darkness through.(Verse 3)They forged a symbol for their bond, four rings of silver bright,And linked them all together close, to show their legal might.Each ring a brand, a brother bound, to brave the stormy weather,A shield of strength upon the road, to face the world together.And on the Grand Prix racing tracks, their engines started roaring,As Silver Arrow racing cars kept lap records a-soaring.(Verse 4)But shadows fell upon the land as war began to rage,The factories turned to military gear on every page.By forty-five, the war was lost, the Soviet troops arrived,The factories seized and broken down, and nothing there survived.The company was erased from print, behind the Iron Curtain,But managers and engineers refused to die for certain.(Verse 5)They packed their bags and made their escape across the ruined land,In forty-nine, in Germany's West, they made a final stand.In true Bavaria's Ingolstadt, they built the walls anew,Though money was tight and times were dark, the team and spirit grew.Yet by the sixties, Daimler sold the factory and the key,And Volkswagen bought the whole domain for Beetle factory glee.(Verse 6)The Volkswagen boss gave strict commands: "No designing cars today!Just build our Beetles on the line, and earn your daily pay."But DKW’s old two-stroke cars were dying on the floor,So VW dropped a four-stroke in, to open up the door.They brought the Audi nameplate back to sell it on the track,A clever move from sixty-five that brought the legend back.(Verse 7)A rebel chief named Ludwig Kraus refused to just obey,He drew up blueprints in the dark, away from light of day.He built the sleek Audi 100, hidden from the boss's view,And when they saw the finished car, they loved it through and through!The secret rebel saved the brand, and saved his company too,With front-wheel drive and liquid cooling, everything was new.(Verse 8)By eighty, they had shocked the world with Quattro on the street,All-wheel drive in rally mud that no one else could beat!With "Vorsprung durch Technik" as their proud and driving cry,They built premium luxury cars that caught the public's eye.From Horch's dream to electric e-trons driving down the line,A hundred years of silver rings continue still to shine!
