"Two 40-horsepower Simplex, one each for the white and one for the blue. 18, 20, 22, 28 horsepower, color, 18 and 20 white, 22 and 28 blue. Now that's a total of sixty-two thousand marks, right? ”

Gao Yi folded his arms in front of his chest, pacing back and forth while giving orders. Mahan sat on the couch, a large pile of telegram slips spread out on the coffee table in front of him.

"That's right, sir, fifteen thousand marks of forty horsepower for one, and the others are eight thousand marks for one, which adds up to sixty-two thousand marks."

"The racing version of the 40-horsepower Simplex is 20,000 marks?"

"Yes, sir."

"Two of the same, white and blue."

"Yes, sir."

"Sixty horsepower, only the racing version?"

"Yes, sir, to be exact—" Mahan pulled out a telegram and looked at it, "this is just an experimental model, and they have only produced a few prototypes for competition use so far." And they say that only one such car is currently available for sale at a price of 30,000 marks. ”

"Buy it and tell them it's going to be painted blue."

"Yes, sir. Now the total price is 132,000 marks. ”

"And the 35HP racing version, how much do they offer?"

Mahan found another telegram and said, "The 35HP race cars are all used, and like the ordinary version, they are all 10,000 marks." A total of five are available for sale. ”

"Okay, let's buy two, one blue and one white. In addition, we want the regular version, but we don't want the one with a hard top that I drive now, buy the kind of rear seat that is the same as the cab with a soft top convertible, what is it called, well, phaeton. There are also two cars, and the colors are also one blue and one white. ”

The term Phaeton, a continuation of the carriage era, has not yet become the bulky Volkswagen Phaeton, and still retains its original meaning as a light convertible, like the Spyder of later generations.

"Okay, that adds up to 172,000 marks."

"We'll buy so many Mercedes, and here's the Phoenix, and we'll have both four and six horses, so it's better to buy two each."

"Well, that's right, sir, Daimler called to say that all eight of their Phoenix were available for sale, except for the two they had kept, at a price of five thousand marks each. But they also gave a package price, if eight cars were bought together, together with a batch of accessories, they would pay a total of 30,000 marks. I wonder if we can talk to them about it, and if we remove the parts, the total price of eight cars will be reduced to 25,000 marks, so that we can buy four more cars for just 5,000 marks. ”

"No need, it's just 30,000 marks, we want that batch of accessories, I am preparing to set up a small repair factory, with this batch of accessories can be used to practice my hands."

"Okay, then now the total price is two hundred and twenty-two thousand marks."

"It's just more than 60,000 taels of silver, it's still early! But that's it for Daimler, let's take a look at other manufacturers. I don't want Fiat, it's like a carriage, it's not interesting. Mercedes-Benz's Parsifil ordered one. ”

The Mercedes-Benz Parsifil is a monumental car, it was the first Mercedes-Benz not to be designed by Carl Benz, the inventor of the automobile. It was designed by French engineers, is a complete Maybach style car, its appearance let Mercedes-Benz finally bid farewell to the traditional horse-drawn carriage style, both the shape and vehicle parameters are fully close to Daimler's Mercedes, low body, rigid body, reasonable center of gravity, strong horsepower, so that it can reach a speed of 60 kilometers per hour. However, the birth of this car was done by the management of Mercedes-Benz without the knowledge of Carl Benz, which directly led to Carl Benz resigning from the position of chief designer and no longer participating in the design work, and Mercedes-Benz has since entered a new era.

"Parsifil for twenty thousand marks." Mahan checked the telegram and reminded.

"Buy!" In terms of parameters, this is obviously not a good deal, but from a collection point of view it is different, this car has never been mass-produced, and it is even rarer than Mercedes.

"Two hundred and twenty-two thousand marks." Once again, Mahan dutifully reported his current total consumption.

"French cars buy Panhard and logos, and the logos only buy models above Type 36."

At this time, the well-known French car dealers only had two brands, Panhard and Peugeot, Renault was only a small company whose factory address could not be found, and Citroen had not even established a company.

Although not well-known in later generations, Panhard was one of the founders of modern automobiles, with pedal clutches, transmissions, chain drives, radiators, steering wheels, and Panhard connecting rods that control the lateral oscillation of the vehicle. As early as 1891, Levasol, the genius designer of Panhard, defined the prototype of the modern automobile, four-wheeled, front-rear-wheel drive, and geared transmission. Levasol and Daimler were good friends, so Panhard used Daimler engines, and Daimler's cars heavily used Panhard's car design.

Peugeot is also Daimler-owned, and it was licensed from Panhard to use Daimler engines. The Type 36 was Peugeot's first Panhard car to use a steering wheel, and a series of its previous products were horse-drawn carriage-shaped.

"Panhard only had a four-horsepower, 3,500-franc one. Peugeot's Type 36, five horsepower, the unit price is also 3,500 francs, and there is a Type 48 on it, which is the latest, eight horsepower, and the price is 5,000 francs a piece. ”

"What about the color?"

"The Panhard is only black, and Peugeot's callback says two colors, but it's all white."

This kind of thing can only be done by the French, but whatever, anyway, it is a car that is less than a thousand taels of silver, and even if he is fooled, he will not lose much.

"It's good to buy two cars each, two Panhards, two Peugeot cars of each model, each color, a total of eight."

"Ten cars in total, seven thousand francs for Panhard and thirty-four thousand francs for Peugeot, adding up to forty-one thousand francs."

"The rest is American cars. What brands are there? ”

At this time, American cars were still horse-drawn carriage styles. However, although the vehicle design in the United States is outdated, the automobile industry is very advanced. The two Oldsmobiles, which were introduced to Shanghai last year by the Hungarian Lee En-s, were produced on the world's first standardized car assembly line. The name of the first automobile assembly line is often misattributed to Ford, in fact, Ford's is called moving assembly line, and the word "flowing water" in the Chinese assembly line may come from moving. As for what is called moving, doesn't Oldsmobile's assembly line need moving? That's the kind of question that comes to Henry Ford.

However, at this time, Ford was still in its infancy, and Oldsmobile was the largest automaker in this era, and when European car manufacturers were still complacent about the annual production of dozens or hundreds of vehicles, Oldsmobile's production had exceeded 2,500 units.

"The car dealers in the United States, I only contacted Oldsmobile, they only have one model, the Curved Dash, which costs $650 and comes in two colors, black and red."

"Didn't Tulia hear back?"

"No, I sent a telegram back to the address I used to call back to say I made a mistake, but they just moved in, and I don't know if it was Tulia's factory."

"Okay, forget it."

The reason why Gao Yi wanted to buy Duryea was because the car that Yuan Shikai gave to Cixi was Turyea, which was more collectible.

"Then it's the same as before, Oldsmobile bought two cars each, two thousand six hundred dollars. You do the math, how much money was spent in total. Converted into silver. ”

"Yes, sir. Two hundred and twenty-two thousand marks were converted into seventy-two thousand taels of silver, forty-one thousand francs were one eleven taels, and two thousand six hundred dollars were three thousand five hundred taels, making a total of eighty-six thousand five hundred taels. ”

"It's almost, even if you count the freight, even if it doesn't reach 100,000, it's almost the same. Just follow this list! ”

"Yes, sir."

"Well, so be it!"

After Gao Yi gave Ma Han's instructions, he hurried to the study, Ma Han wanted to follow, but was stopped by Gao Yi, signaling him to sort out the telegram first, don't lose it, and may use it in the future.

In the small drawing-room, Miss McBride was fiddling with a pot of roses, the petals of which she had almost plucked out.