DKW

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.

In 1916, Danish engineer Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen founded a factory in Zschopau, Saxony, Germany, to produce steam fittings. That year he attempted to produce a steam-power car; German: Dampfkraftwagen, from which the acronym DKW is derived. That steam car was unsuccessful, and in 1919 he made toy two-stroke engines under the name des Knaben Wunsch – the boy's wish. He put a slightly modified version of the toy engine into a motorcycle and called it das kleine Wunder – the little wonder, and by the late 1920s DKW had become the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer.

In September 1924, DKW bought Slaby-Beringer [de], saving them from Germany's hyperinflation. Rudolf Slaby became chief engineer at DKW.[5] In 1932, DKW merged with Audi, Horch and Wanderer to form Auto Union.[3] After World War II, DKW moved to West Germany. The original factory became MZ.[1] Auto Union came under Daimler-Benz ownership in 1957 and was purchased by the Volkswagen Group in 1964. The last started German-built DKW car was the F102, which ceased production in 1966 (the last model bas DKW Munga, which production had started already in 1956). F102's successor, the four-stroke F103, was marketed under the Audi brand, another Auto Union marque.

DKW-badged cars continued to be built under license in Brazil and Argentina until 1967 and 1969 respectively. The DKW trademark is currently owned by Auto Union GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Audi AG which also owns the rights to other historical trademarks and intellectual property of the Auto Union combine.