One of the best-known luxury car brands in the world is Audi. There is an interesting story about how the Audi brand came to be . In the early 1900s ,a German engineer named August Horch founded a car company , only to break rank with his partners in 1909 over a dispute . As soon as he had been forced out of the company , he launched a new car brand which he also named after himself . However , his former partners sued him for using the Horch brand . Ultimately , the courts ruled in favor of his partners for a trademark violation . Now that a decision had been handed down , Horch had to scramble to come up with a new brand name . During a meeting with associates at his friend's house , the friend's son , who was studying Latin exclaimed "Audiatur et alter pars"---"Wouldn't it be a good idea to call it audi instead of horch?"Audi is the Latin word for horch, which means "hear". The name was adopted.