This Audi Shaped Volkswagen's Future. We Got to Drive It

Sometimes, you just get lucky, and just so happen to be in the right place at the right time. Chance often plays a role, especially in the lengthy development of new cars. Audi timed the market perfectly, taking 21 months to develop the 50, the first small car from a German manufacturer. It debuted in 1974, following the 1973 oil price crisis.
The Audi 50 is also a blueprint for the almost identical Volkswagen Polo, which the Wolfsburg-based company launched seven months later. We were able to drive one of the now rare small Audi models to celebrate its 50th birthday.

Let's look back: The 50 was meant to round off the lower end of the model range, pairing nicely with the Audi 80 and Audi 100. As early as 1970, the engineers at Audi NSU Auto Union AG, which was founded in 1969, set to work, led by Chief Technical Officer Ludwig Kraus: A successor was needed for the tried-and-tested NSU small cars around the Prinz 4, which was particularly popular in Italy, whose end of production was in sight.
At the same time, VW in Wolfsburg was busy taking time-consuming detours to arrive at the Golf as the successor to the Beetle. It is conceivable, although not proven, that the smaller Audi 50 provided another layer of security, with it later rebranded as the VW Polo. Incidentally, the Golf and 50 shared Italian design influences, even though the final designs were produced in Germany—Giugiaro for the Golf and Bertone for the Audi.
Although the oil price crisis of 1973, with its empty highways, gave the small car class an additional boost, important cars had already come before that. In addition to the Mini from 1959, models such as the Autobianchi A112 (1969), Fiat 127 (1971), and the Renault 5 (1972) from Italy and France came from countries that had always had an affinity for small vehicles.
At the beginning of the 1970s, developers knew exactly what was going on. The key to success was the transverse-mounted engine. With it, the Ingolstadt-based company created a car with a relatively large interior and an overall length of just 11.45 feet.