90 years of Johann Abt: His spirit continues to inspire ABT Sportsline to this day

Johann Abt, born on 20 December 1935 in Kempten in the Allgäu region, was driven by a passion for automotive technology and motorsport already as a boy. At the age of 14, he built his first race car from the wreckage of a DKW and drove it to the podium in 1950 on his very first start. At AUTO-ABT, which emerged from the horse and carriage workshop founded by his grandfather Johann Baptist Abt in 1896, he learned the automotive trade and supported his mother Rosina, who continued to run the family business when his father Josef was killed in the war.
 
After completing his apprenticeship, Johann Abt did an internship at Borgward in Bremen in 1951 and then continued his training at Audi’s predecessor brand DKW in Ingolstadt. It was there that the Bavarian native discovered his great love for all-wheel drive and racing motorcycles. As a member of the DKW factory team, he became the youngest German world champion in off-road motorcycle racing in 1955 at the age of only 19. He returned to car racing in 1959 and, with his master craftsman’s certificate in his pocket, returned to AUTO-ABT in Kempten in 1962.
 
“We want a car just like Johann Abt’s.” This demand from customers grew louder the more he won with DKW models on the circuit and in hill climbs. Johann Abt turned this into a business model: performance enhancement and vehicle refinement for a growing AUTO-ABT customer base. The motto “From the racetrack to the road” was born and continues to shape ABT to this day.

In 1975, after more than 300 race victories and numerous titles, including the 1970 European Touring Car Championship, Johann Abt hung up his racing helmet and intensified AUTO-ABT’s collaboration with the Volkswagen Group. Founded in 1967, ABT Tuning now refines not only Audi models such as the Audi 80 and Audi 50, but also VW models such as the Golf, Polo, Scirocco, and Passat. With the first ABT Golf GTI, he achieved another tuning success from Kempten, and with the early switch to innovative chip tuning, he laid the foundation for ABT’s later pioneering role in intelligent performance upgrades.
 
Through ABT Motorsport, the next subsidiary, Johann Abt provided Audi with his extensive all-wheel drive expertise for the brand’s first motorsport factory project from the end of the 1970s. In 1991, he scored a double victory on the track and on the road: he restructured the in-house racing team, which had been dormant since his retirement from racing, and transferred the international expansion of the tuning business to the newly founded ABT Sportsline GmbH, the world’s leading tuner for vehicles from the Volkswagen Group.
 
His sons Hans-Jürgen and Christian initially ran ABT Sportsline together, but since 2011 Hans-Jürgen Abt has been the sole head of the entire ABT Group. “My father was a great pioneer – in motorsport as well as in tuning. I am proud that his energy and curiosity continue to drive our company and the ABT brand forward,” says Hans-Jürgen Abt on his father’s 90th birthday. “And I am equally proud and grateful every day for the street sign ‘Johann-Abt-Strasse’ at our company headquarters, with which the city of Kempten honoured my father in 2015 for his services to our city and the entire region.”
 
Hans-Jürgen Abt is the fourth generation to run the company and has been leading it through what is probably its biggest transformation since 2015. In addition to ABT Sportsline, which focuses on vehicle refinement, high-performance models, and motorsports, new subsidiaries are being created, such as ABT e-line GmbH, founded in 2018, which is accelerating the technological transformation of the ABT Group. At the same time, the management structure is being optimised: with Daniel and Marina Abt, the fifth ABT generation is now part of the management team and is securing the future of ABT as a family business. Daniel Abt, Chief Communications Officer and Head of Marketing, is responsible for brand and communications strategy, while Marina Abt, Manager of Marketing & Communications, is responsible for public relations. Thomas Biermaier, who joined ABT in 2002, initially responsible for motorsports and later also for sales, has been CEO of ABT Sportsline GmbH since 2019.
 
With a clear model strategy and emotional brand management, ABT has grown globally as a high-performance brand since 2015 and has further developed its product world in a forward-looking manner. In addition to classic refinements for Audi, Volkswagen, SEAT, CUPRA, Lamborghini and Škoda, the ABT Performance Cars division offers a new dimension of customisation. It includes exclusive, strictly limited special models and small series that combine state-of-the-art technology, precise manufacturing and motorsport DNA.
 
In motorsport, ABT has demonstrated over the past ten years how tradition and the future can be combined. In the all-electric Formula E and Extreme E racing series, the Allgäu-based company has been setting global standards for sustainable racing and forward-looking technology development. At the same time, ABT remains a fixture in the DTM, the touring car programme that has been running since 2000.
 
“Our company has changed more in the last ten years than ever before,” says Hans-Jürgen Abt. “But we have preserved what is most important and will continue to do so for the benefit of our customers around the world: the spirit of Johann Abt, his exemplary enthusiasm and passion for innovative automotive excellence. This spirit is now embodied in every vehicle that leaves our premises on Johann-Abt-Strasse.”