Seeing that the speed of the carriage in front of him had slowed down, Gao Yi finally did not make the previous mistake again this time, he did not rush to pull the handbrake, but first stepped on the outermost pedal with his foot. The pedal is connected to a water-cooled disc brake, which, when pressed, disconnects the intermediate shaft from the engine's output shaft and brakes the intermediate shaft, cutting off the engine's power to the rear wheels.

The car uses a front-rear-wheel drive mode, that is, the engine is in front of the cab, and the power is output to the rear wheels through the transmission shaft to drive the vehicle forward. In the later generations, in addition to the pursuit of extreme speed, the supercar with the rear of the engine, and the Porsche 911 that insisted on the rear of the engine, most high-performance cars adopted this front-rear rear-wheel drive method. However, unlike later generations, the power of this car is not directly output to the rear wheels, but is transmitted to a pair of sprockets through an intermediate shaft, and then through the roller chain hanging on the sprockets to drive the rear wheels to run - for why this mode is adopted, instead of using the shaft to directly drive the rear wheels, Gao Yi is not very clear, maybe it is not up to the process, or maybe it is just a matter of habit, because the previous cars are like bicycles, driven by chains, and have never used the combination of shafts and gears.

Braking the middle axle is like riding a bicycle with both feet on the pedal and not moving, at this time it will not only no longer output power to the bicycle, but it will not prevent the bicycle from continuing to roll forward according to inertia. If you want the bike to slow down and stop, you have to pinch the handbrake. The same is true for this car, where Gao Yi pulls the handbrake located on the outside of the door.

The handbrake is connected to a thing called "drums" by a wire rope, which is a 30-centimeter-thick tree trunk that is pulled up by the handbrake and rubbed against the wooden part of the inner side of the steel-clad wooden wheel to slow down. Later generations of brakes are divided into drum brakes and disc brakes, and the English name of drum brakes is drum brake, which is probably inherited from the word drums. Gao Yi used to be puzzled by this, the disc brake is called the disc brake because it looks like a plate, which is understandable, but the drum brake can't be seen no matter how you look at it, what does it have to do with the "drum". It wasn't until he saw the big tree trunk on this car that Gao Yi sincerely realized what history is and what inheritance is.

This time, after the handbrake was pulled up, there was no squeak, there was no smell of burnt paste between the wheels, and the speed of the car dropped significantly. Gao Yi breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, the matter is not over yet, and the gears need to be lowered.

The car has a total of four forward gears and one reverse gear, which at this time is hanging on third gear. Gao Yi habitually stretched out his left foot to step on the clutch, but stepped on the air, only to realize that the car does not have a clutch, or that the clutch of this car is integrated into the gear lever, so just change gears directly.

The gear lever is next to the steering wheel lever, and the gear lever is positioned so high that it can be reached by hanging your hand. He pulled the lever back two notches and dropped it to first gear.

At this time, the carriage in front had stopped on the side of the road, and Gao Yi had no choice but to pull the handbrake and stop behind it. The one he took was the Tibetan Road, and since the river had not yet been filled, it was now just a small road next to the mud city, and there were no more than two carriages side by side, and one happened to come from the opposite side.

When the carriage in the opposite lane passed, Gao Yi poked his head out of the door, visually inspected the distance of the next carriage, and found that the other party was still some distance away from him, so he quickly released the handbrake, and at the same time released the brake of the middle axle with his right foot, so that the car regained power.

The public concession is on the left-hand side, and the car under the seat happens to be a right-hand drive car. Gao Yi hit the steering wheel slightly to the right, deflected the front of the car a little, and then slammed on the accelerator, and the engine roared into the opposite lane, and only turned back after overtaking the carriage in front of him, and then, added second gear, added third gear. After the speed of the car stabilized again, Gao Yi had to take a breath.

The classic car is really hard to drive, and he, the old driver, is trembling. And compared with other cars of this era, the Mercedes 35HP he drove is infinitely close to a modern car in terms of appearance and handling.

Others, such as the Mercedes-Benz Viktoria, the Ford A, or the Oldsmobile, which was introduced to Shanghai in 1901, were far more popular than Ford's, and all looked like horseless carriages. The car is designed to be high and narrow, the wheels are still horse-drawn wheels, and the center of the engine is also very high, so it is easy to roll over if you drive a little faster, so it is common to use a low-power engine of less than 10 horses, and the speed does not exceed 30 kilometers.

And this Mercedes 35HP, with a well-designed U-section stamped steel chassis frame, is strong, calm and low; A 230-kilogram inline-four engine that does not use an additional subframe, but is fixed directly to the front axle, allowing its center of gravity to be as close to the ground as possible; A light steel structure body, so that the weight of the vehicle is only 1.2 tons, the wheelbase is 2.35 meters, the wheel base is 1.4 meters, the ground clearance is 45 cm, 35 horsepower, the maximum road speed is 75 kilometers, the maximum race speed is 86 kilometers, which can be said to be the parameters of a modern car.

The Mercedes 35HP is derived from Daimler's Phoenix, which was designed in 1897 as a 4 to 6 hp light vehicle, which does not stand out in terms of performance, except that for the first time in appearance it placed the engine above the front axle, so a protruding engine compartment appeared in front of the cockpit, forming the basic style of modern cars. The wheels used by the Phoenix are no longer horse-drawn wheels, but lower, inflatable rubber wheels designed specifically for cars.

However, after the Phoenix, Daimler did not actually plan to produce a car like the Mercedes 35HP, which was not originally a Daimler brand.

It was Emil Jelinek, the Austro-Hungarian Consul General in Nice, France, who was an Austrian billionaire, a racing enthusiast and a successful car seller. When the Daimler Phoenix was introduced, he became a big fan of this model. He even organized a convoy of two Phoenix cars for the Nice-Laturbier hill climb in March 1900. With Daimler's Phoenix, which can reach speeds of up to 35 kilometers per hour, Jelinek easily won all the races, but he was still not satisfied with the car.

In order to obtain a higher-performance car, Jelinek placed an order with Daimler AG for a total of 500,000 gold marks to customize a new, more powerful model. It was also stipulated that the engine of this model had to be completed by Chief Engineer Maybach and Paul Daimler, son of the late founder Gottlieb Daimler. At the same time, he proposed revolutionary improvements, which had to be lighter, wider, with a longer wheelbase, a lower center of gravity, a stronger chassis and a more powerful engine.

Jelinek named the new car Mercedes, in honor of his eldest daughter, Adriana Maruna Jelinek, whose nickname is Mércédès, which means "human affection", "kindness" and "compassion" in Spanish. Although his daughter died, Jelinek believed that the name Mercedes would bring good luck, and he used this name to name his possessions, such as his mansion, the cars he sold, his racing team, and so on. He himself is often referred to as Mr. Mercedes. Even when he turned 50 this year, he changed his surname to Jelinek Mercedes, saying that it was probably the first time that a father had inherited a name from his daughter, and his signature has since been changed to E. Mécedes.

The new car, named Mercedes, broke all records at the time when it increased its average speed from 31 km/h to 51 km/h and reached a top speed of 86 km/h in the Nice-Laturbier hill climb in March 1901. It is this car that tells people what the car should look like and how powerful it can be.

Therefore, although the car was invented by Mercedes-Benz, the pioneer of modern cars was Daimler, and it was Mercedes that really brought the car to the modern era.

******

After passing the mud city, the car made a slight detour along the south side of the racecourse, and then turned onto Marco Polo Road, which ended at Baochang Road.

Baochang Road was just paved with gravel last year, it is a new road, wide and smooth, I don't know if it is because it is lunch time, there is not a single car on this road that is a "rural place" after that.

Gao Yi hung the car on the fourth gear, stepped on the accelerator to the end, and raced to his heart's content. Unfortunately, there was no such thing as a speedometer in those days, so he didn't know how fast the car was going.

Gao Yi vaguely remembered that it was said in this movie that if the speed of the car reaches 70 kilometers, put your hand out of the window, and the feeling of the wind blowing in the palm of your hand at this time is like holding a girl's chest. So he put his hand out of the window, and after a while, as if lacking a reference, he put his other hand on the chest of Miss McBride, who was sitting next to him. The car went straight ahead, not missing at all.

"Hey!" McBride slapped Gao Yi's hand away in some anger, but when he reached out for the second time, he no longer objected.

Gao Yi hooked up with McBride after returning from that hunt, and that night's encounter with Madame de Grey had sharply increased his desire to find a girlfriend by an order of magnitude. Compared with the married women, McBride is undoubtedly the most suitable candidate, although there is a suspicion that the rabbit eats the grass next to the nest, but the rabbit also has a hurry.