Siheyuan: Heavy Industry Revitalizes the Country

“Nice to listen to, easy to remember, and international?”

Fang Xiang pondered for a moment, and realized that the current Bavarian Machinery Manufacturing Plant has not yet introduced their enduring naming method.

In that case, I'm so embarrassed.

“The previous small car was called 115, 1 represents the first series and 15 represents the displacement.

Now this car is called 320, 3 represents the 20 series, and represents the displacement.

If I design a large car in the future, I’ll go with the 530.

5 represents the 5 series, and 30 represents the displacement. "

Fang Xiang recalled that BMW's naming method started in 73 or 74.

Anyway, it's only 66 years now, and they're still using the 1600, 1800, and 2000 naming convention.

Since I have already taken the BMW name, it should be okay for me to take the name of a car model, right?

"Are they all named after numbers? I thought you wanted to name it Luoyi or something."

Cao Tianwei didn't quite understand for a moment.

According to the domestic naming method, all of them are named in Chinese.

“We’ve talked about internationalization, but will foreigners recognize Chinese?

Numbers are easier to remember. Aren’t many car models abroad named with numbers?

We are exporting, so we will talk about it if we get orders from China."

Fang Xiang shook his head and expressed his thoughts.

"Okay, I'll call the First Ministry of Machine Building right away. They're still waiting."

Cao Tianwei always highly approves of Fang's ideas, and he does whatever Fang wants to say.

No matter whether what Fang Xiang said made sense or not, in the past two years, Fang Xiang had never made a mistake.

“By the way, the new director of the Civilian Machinery Bureau is very interested in the mid-sized car you are designing.

Let me ask you if you can send a few to Beijing later. They want to see if they can be used as official cars."

Cao Tianwei, who was about to leave, suddenly remembered something, turned around and said something.

“It’s still early, the drawings have just been finalized, and I haven’t drawn the final assembly drawing yet.

Even if you place an order now, it will take half a month to see the finished product.

Besides, I designed a new engine this time and I want to see the test.”

Fang Xiang has never met the new director of the Civil Machinery Bureau.

Because I had been drawing behind closed doors for the past two months, Cao Tianwei was the one who communicated on my behalf.

It is not difficult to understand their thoughts.

It was nothing more than wanting to send Fang Xiang a signal of goodwill.

However, no matter how anxious you are, you have to wait until the prototype car comes out.

"Okay, the new Director Jiang is quite concerned about you. He said that he will wait for you to return to Beijing and invite you to come and have a cup of tea."

Cao Tianwei naturally also understood the process and time required for a new car.

But after all, it was Fang Xiang who was asked, so he couldn't make a decision on his own.

"Director Jiang?"

Fang Xiang asked curiously.

“Yes, he said he was previously the deputy general manager of an automobile industry company.

It is also thanks to you that I was able to bring it up this time.

So I want to be closer to you."

Cao Tianwei explained.

“Okay, I get it, let’s go back and wait until the prototype car is built.

It’s just sending a few sample cars to Beijing.”

Fang Xiang nodded and remembered the new director whose surname was Jiang.

As time passed, another month passed.

The machine tools used to produce jeep chassis at the factory were also delivered.

After the installation is in place, the factory can produce the chassis of the 213 jeep on its own.

Instead, there is no need to place orders for parts from various places and then have them shipped to the factory for assembly.

Then came the new 320, and spare parts also arrived at the factory one after another.

Under the guidance of Fang Xiang and Cao Tianwei, the assembly was completed.

“This car is so beautiful, the look, the lines.

And this skylight is a genius design!"

Director Ma in front of him was sitting in the car, looking here and there silently.

Finally, he kept pulling the sunroof on the roof of the car and never stopped exclaiming in admiration.

"Want to run for a bit?"

Cao Tianwei, who was standing next to Fang Xiang, was already accustomed to the fact that Fang Xiang was a genius.

For Sunroof, the new engine is what he is more concerned about.

"Run if you want. Whether it's a mule or a horse, you have to take it out for a walk."

Fang Xiang took out a pack of cigarettes and distributed them to a few people.

Just as Fang Xiang and the others were lighting cigarettes, Director Ma nodded to the office director.

Several drivers who were eager to try couldn't wait to sit in the driving seat.

After starting the engine, I shifted the gear and started driving around the road test site.

“The data for the last 1.5-liter engine came out.

The power is 87 horsepower and the torque is 112 Nm.

According to the information summarized from the sample car that is currently running, the fuel consumption is only 8 liters!

This is incredible!"

Cao Tianwei looked at the 320 running on the field and suddenly talked about the 115 engine.

"Is it stable?"

Fang Xiang was not surprised at all that the 115 engine performed like this.

The original engine has 120 horsepower, and now it is basically 7% off.

This is the price of building it in advance.

The technological gap in China is so obvious.

It is said that passing the exam is easy, and getting 80 points is not difficult either.

The difficult part is to get 100 points.

From 90 points to 100 points, the price paid for every extra point almost doubles.

Now I can get 72 points, which is already very good.

If domestic technology is improved in the future and new machine tools are replaced.

For the same engine, it is easy to get 80 points without any modification.

In that case, this 115 engine would have at least 95 horsepower.

Nowadays, the horsepower of a common 2.0 engine in the world is only 95 to 120 horsepower.

The 115 engine can almost be called black technology.

If a turbo is added, it seems possible to reach 130 horsepower.

Speaking of turbines, they actually already exist now, but they are not popular.

Production processes and technologies are not difficult.

The difficulty lies in stability and materials.

Moreover, turbo is not very useful in family cars.

Unless Fang wants BMW to participate in some competitions.

Speaking of competitions, there are already many well-known competitions in the world today.

But they don’t want to play with us.

Being able to sell the BMW 1 Series and 3 Series to Eastern and Southern Europe would be a huge success.

As for the rest, don’t think too much about it.

“Not bad, at least there haven’t been any major problems with the five 115 vehicles running now.

There are some minor issues, but they are all minor problems with assembly and individual parts.

The on-board engineer or even the skilled driver can handle it themselves.”

Cao Tianwei continued with Fang Xiang’s previous question.

“Then let’s run these cars in the factory first.

When the engine data comes out, show it to me.

Then the question was about the handling and comfort of the chassis, which was asked by the drivers participating in the test.

Take this form, give it a score, write a comment or something.

I guess there are many places on this chassis that need to be adjusted.

As for the gearbox matching, did you copy the one from Shanghai Auto?"

Fang Xiang took out the questionnaire he had written in advance and handed it to Director Ma.

“Yes, these are the parameters given by Shanghai Auto, and we did not change them.

The drivers and engineers of the several 115s that ran away did not provide any feedback on this information.

Shall I send a telegram to ask?"

Cao Tianwei knew what Fang Xiang meant and was worried that the two new engines would not match the previous four-speed manual transmission.

But in his opinion, as long as it works, it's fine. Doing so many tests just to adjust those tiny parameters is not worth it.

“Later, you will set up a separate team to specialize in adjusting the matching parameters of the gearbox and engine.

Once these two cars are stable, we will design an automatic transmission!"

Fang Xiang also understood Cao Tianwei's thoughts very well.

Just because he doesn't take it seriously doesn't mean I don't take it seriously.

The four-speed manual transmission is enough for ten years.

It can even be used until the 1980s, after domestic machine tools are replaced.

It is possible to directly update to six speed.

But Fang Xiang thought that the automatic transmission was still worth a try.

What if a future customer makes a request but we are not prepared?

That's not good.