Audi - Leader of The Left-Hand-Drive Revolution

MILTON KEYNES, UNITED KINGDOM – May 27, 2009 - 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.

Picture caption
Audi to the left, Audi to the right – The Audi Type K of 1921 pioneered left-hand drive in Germany. Before its launch, all models, including the 1910 Type A and the 1912 Type C, had right-mounted steering wheels.