Audi 50

The Audi 50 was a small front-wheel-drive supermini that Audi built from 1974 to 1978 and sold only in Europe. Internally known as Typ 86, it was one of the first hatchbacks of its class to come from a German maker, and it was the same car as the Volkswagen Polo under another badge. Development started in 1968 as project K50 and took only 21 months, with styling by Marcello Gandini of Bertone and finishing work by Audi designer Claus Luthe. It had a single three-door hatchback body and a transversely mounted 1,093 cc petrol engine. The cheaper Polo outsold it almost at once, and Audi dropped the 50 in 1978 after 180,812 had been built. Audi then had no car in the class until the A2 of 1999.