Dr. Rüdiger Etzold was born on February 26, 1940, on the North Sea island of Norderney. After finishing school, he began an apprenticeship as a car mechanic and studied vehicle technology in Hamburg after serving in the military and completing an internship in bodywork construction. He then completed a traineeship at Stalling Verlag in Hamburg. In 1968, he moved to Stuttgart to work as a technical editor and deputy editor-in-chief for the automotive magazine "Gute Fahrt." In his spare time, he wrote the first volume of his book series "So wird's gemacht," which was published in 1974. To date, over 7 million books have been sold. In 1976, Etzold became self-employed as an automotive journalist. He published in many daily and specialized newspapers and wrote the four-volume documentation on the VW Beetle. In 1985, Etzold was commissioned to document the company history of Audi AG. He earned his doctorate on this topic in 1991 in Dresden. Dr. Etzold lives with his wife in Leonberg, where he runs an editorial office.