From a rebellious engineer in Kaiser-era Germany to a silicon-smart contender on the 2026 Formula 1 grid, Vorsprung traces 125 years of Audi with the verve of a turbo spool and the precision of a CNC mill. It opens in brass-era Zwickau, where August Horch coins "Audi" in Latin, and closes in carbon-negative factories humming with solid-state batteries. Along the way you'll witness snow-flung quattro rallies, Bauhaus design revolutions, Dieselgate reckonings and electric‐ desert triumphs at Dakar.
Every chapter marries narrative drama with engineering clarity. Board-room battles unfold beside exploded-view breakdowns of five-cylinder turbos; Le Mans night stints segue into thermodynamic deep-dives on FSI injection. Vivid anecdotes-Michele Mouton spraying champagne in Sanremo, Tom Kristensen chasing dawn at Le Sarthe, Carlos Sainz surfing dunes in a series-hybrid buggy-bring life to torque curves and CAD drawings. Exclusive interviews with designers, racers and sustainability chiefs reveal the thinking behind aluminium space frames, sphere concepts and Mission: Zero carbon plans.
Illustrated by a curated gallery of landmark models and anchored in rigorous sourcing, Vorsprung is both a gear-head's feast and a strategist's case study. Whether you're drawn to roaring V16 Silver Arrows, whisper-quiet e-trons or the algorithms steering tomorrow's robo-taxis, this book shows how Audi keeps its rings shining in an era where speed, software and sustainability must coexist.