Strange that that article states "There's no single English word which is an exact equivalent of 'vorsprung'".
Vorsprung is lead. Durch is harder in my opinion. Can be translate as "by" or "because of".
So the translations would be "lead by technology" or "in the lead because of technology"
Vorsprung is anything that is slightly ahead, so you're wrong there. It applies to a lot more than you seem to think. It's frequently used in describing smallish platforms on mountains, buildings as well for example.
In the ‘small platform that sticks out’ sense the English equivalent would be ‘projection’ (interesting that that comes from a Latin root of ‘something that is thrown forward’, while the German word is more ‘something that jumps forward’), but in the context of the phrase the other meanings of that word would dominate.
There’s definitely a sense of ‘getting a head start’, ‘being at an advantage’ to Vorsprung that is hard to capture in a single English word.
Perhaps one way to translate it would be: Privilege through technology
It’s a commonly offered translation but there’s a sense in which it doesn’t capture the same nuance.
If Audi wanted to say ‘progress through technology’, why isn’t the slogan ‘Bewegung durch Technik’? Bewegung very much has the sense of ‘progress’, but also has a double sense of ‘movement’, both in the sense of physical movement as well as a social movement. All of which are strong connotations the English word ‘progress’ captures. And would be a good slogan for a car company, too.
But that isn’t the word they chose, so progress is a slightly unsatisfactory translation.
I wish I had a pic of the plaque wall at intel HQ, SC5 -- there are a bunch of plaques from partners... and several of them have Engrish phrases thanking Intel for best to the future we go hand in hand for great cause and somesuch other awesome things.
