What would have happened if ...
02/10/2016
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Around 1960, a team led by Ludwig Kraus at Daimler-Benz built a new mid-range passenger car, the prototypes were called the W 118 and W 119. Head of engineering Nallinger called the car the "catch-up type" because it was intended to catch (or receive) customers who had outgrown the vehicle range of other brands but did not yet have the means for a "proper" Benz.
However, the prototype was also built to show the DKW team how to develop a modern car. At that time, Daimler-Benz was the owner of Auto Union and the two-stroke engines from Ingolstadt were difficult to handle in Stuttgart-Sindelfingen.
A close relative of the W 119 actually appeared at the 1963 IAA as the DKW F 102, albeit still with a two-stroke three-cylinder engine. But two years later came its successor, now christened "Audi" and with a modern four-cylinder four-stroke engine developed at Mercedes. We have just published a report on this car .
By 1965, however, Daimler-Benz had already sold on the unloved Auto Union to Volkswagen. And Volkswagen in turn ensured the success of the new car and, as we know today, Audi became a very successful brand that can now compete with the top products of Mercedes-Benz and BMW.
But what would have happened if Daimler-Benz had behaved differently back then? It would have been possible to make the W 119 ready for series production and produce it as a Mercedes on the DKW/Auto Union production lines, and the baby Benz would have been launched on the market in the mid-sixties rather than in 1982. But perhaps Mercedes did not have the financial means at the time to cover further losses at Auto Union and would have become a takeover candidate itself with this strategy and even been swallowed up by Volkswagen? Then the star would be part of the Volkswagen brand portfolio today alongside the four rings and a W16 or another Phaeton engine would be humming in the front of the S-Class? Unthinkable ...
But things could have turned out differently if the Baby-Benz had already been on the road to success in the sixties and seventies. Then perhaps Daimler-Benz would have swallowed up the competition from Bavaria and the world of car brands would look different today ....
Or, what would have happened if ...
