A few days later, a company called "Volkswagen AG" was established in Cleveland. This company was not remarkable when it was founded, although there are legends that this company is actually the property of the MacDonald family, but you have to check its major shareholders, except for the Rockefeller of Standard Oil, it really seems that it has little to do with MacDonald, at least, none of these shareholders have the surname MacDonald.

Of course, if you dig a little deeper, you will find that these shareholders (usually some investment companies or something) are shareholders, and you will find that they are all holding companies or even sole proprietorships of the MacDonald family. In fact, most of the shares of this "Volkswagen" are in the hands of the MacDonald family.

The inauguration ceremony was very simple, and the MacDonald family did not have any important people in attendance to speak or anything. After the company was founded, it spent a lot of money on the front page of many newspapers, including the New York Times, and published a short communiqué on the front page. At the same time, on the radio, "Volkswagen" also began to appear frequently in prime time. The long hours on the radio and the large number of announcements in prominent places did draw a lot of attention to the newly established company, but on the other hand, neither the communiqué nor the short advertisements were short enough to make people even understand what the company was doing and what the so-called "gasoline-powered cars" they were producing.

Of course, this has also aroused the interest of some people, for example, on the radio program, people keep calling and asking what the so-called "gasoline-powered car" made by "Volkswagen" is. However, the anchor can only answer with "I don't know very well". This situation has also aroused the curiosity of some people more and more.

Half a month later, the mystery was revealed. On this day, Volkswagen invited a large number of media to conduct a public display under the tower in New York. The first thing on display was a van. Compared to a wagon, the car has a larger body and thicker tires. In front of the huge body, there is the cab of the car, which is made of steel structure and iron sheets, with two windscreens on the front and glass-filled doors on both sides. There are two seats, a steering wheel, a gearbox, and three pedals for the clutch, accelerator, and brake. Overall, it looks much the same as a modern truck.

For comparison, there is also a horse-drawn carriage parked next to this truck. It was a heavy-duty carriage with four tall Shire horses. The Shire horse is the tallest and strongest horse in the world, and an adult Shire horse can generally be more than two meters tall at the shoulder, and if the head is raised, the height from the horse's hooves to the horse's head can usually exceed two meters six, and the weight can reach more than a ton. Generally speaking, a load-bearing carriage only needs one Shire horse is enough, and this load-bearing carriage is actually pulled by four Shire horses, which is simply a luxury!

Next to these two cars, there is also an electric crane, and next to it, there are some iron ingots. These ingots are marked with the word "1T". In full view of everyone, an electric crane lifted five of these ingots onto the wagon in one fell swoop. Five tons, and the carriage was loaded with a full five tons in one go.

However, people who are more familiar with the Shire horse still don't care too much, pulling five tons of cargo, if it is on flat ground, let alone four Shire horses, even if there is only one Shire horse, it can be done reluctantly. Four Shire horses, pulling such a little thing, is definitely not tired. But if you look at the road ahead, things seem a little different.

On the road that surrounds the New York Tower, there are small uphill and downhill slopes made of steel plates. For the horse-drawn carriage, the climb is the hardest.

Then the electric crane lifted the ten ingots onto the truck in one go. At the same time, on a temporary high platform erected next to it, the general manager of "Volkswagen", Frank 61 Rockefeller (John 61 Rockefeller's younger brother, in the original history, Frank fell out with his brother because of the question of whether he should serve in the military in the Civil War, and he did not get along with each other until he died. And in this plane, because of the changes brought about by Scrooge's intervention, Frank became a hero in the war, and John did not leave the problem of non-military service - he participated in the war as the head of logistics for the Cleveland Volunteer Corps, so the two brothers did not completely fall out. But the relationship between the two is still not particularly good. Of course, Scrooge would have chosen him to be the general manager, which may have something to do with it. Announced, the race between the truck and the horse-drawn truck now begins.

The first thing to start was the carriage pulled by four Charles, although it contained a lot of goods, but the Shire horses were Shire horses after all, worthy of the reputation of the strongest horses, the coachman gently shook the whip, and the four horses worked together, and soon pulled the carriage around, and then walked quickly into a trot. Then the speed increased even further, and it became a fast run. Of course, the Shire horse itself is not a good horse that is good at running, and pulling the cart, the so-called fast running, is not much faster.

"Hey! It's really Sharma! Pull so much and still run! In the crowd watching the battle next to him, some people couldn't help but admire.

"Hey, I don't know where it's better than our broken carriage." Another man who looked like a coachman also lamented, "Our car, with five tons of goods, is afraid that it will collapse directly." Together, the two horses in the family may not be as good as a Shire horse. ”

At this time, Schumacher, the driver of the car, had just started the car with a rocker and got into the cab. By this time, the carriage was already almost a hundred meters ahead of him. Schumacher gently lowered the handbrake, put up the gear, held the steering wheel with his hands, and slowly lifted the clutch.

The truck, which was hauling a full ten tons of cargo, emitted a puff of black smoke and began to accelerate forward. Compared with some light trucks with more than 100 horsepower in later generations (those heavy trucks that pull hundreds of tons are not necessary), at this time, the Volkswagen truck with only 40 horsepower is much worse in power, but it is overloaded and pulls ten tons of goods. (My light truck of the Great Celestial Empire said: Pulling ten tons is also considered overloaded?) Weighbridge retorts: You're already overloaded when you're empty! By the standards of later generations, the level of acceleration was naturally miserable.

However, this is from the perspective of later generations, in this era, when Schumacher pressed the accelerator pedal hard, the 8.0-liter V12 engine roared, and the car immediately seemed to others to rush out like an angry bull.

"Oh my God! It's fast! The crowd of onlookers exclaimed.

By this time, the carriage had also reached the first ramp. The slope is actually just over a meter high, but the slope is slightly larger. The coachman who drove the carriage was also an old man, and knew that the slope could not be crossed by a rush, so he reduced his speed a little, so that the four Shire horses could pull the carriage over with their strength on the ground.

Shire horses are shire horses after all, and the long-haired hooves of these huge, graceful steeds sturdy on the ramp, the muscles of their shoulders bulging high, pulling the five-ton carriage down the ramp.

"Well done! What a horse! The coachman-like man just now marveled again. He had been staring at this ramp just now, and it was not easy to pull such a heavy object over such a ramp. He felt that ten horses might not be enough for his horses.

As soon as the admiration fell, the strange "car" also came to the ramp, and without even slowing down, it rushed straight up, caught up with the carriage in a blink of an eye, and then left it behind without mercy......

"This ...... This is dragging a ten-ton cargo? I didn't slow down much when I went uphill, and it just passed? Is there any reason for this! The coachman could not help but cry out, but unfortunately he had not yet been educated in the ideas of proletarian revolution, let alone made such a statement:

"The darkness of ignorance and hypocrisy. Still shrouded in the world!

I swear that from today onwards I will fight for the truth..."

Oaths of this kind. (Salute to the invincible city managers!) Otherwise, if he can't keep it, he'll shout at the car, "It's not scientific!" "Let's see if there's some dark creature in there.

The carriage quickly overtook the carriage, and then left it far behind at a frighteningly fast speed (no more than thirty kilometers per hour according to Scrooge's eyesight).

In addition to this ramp, there are two higher ramps in this lap, and the second ramp is slightly gentler but even higher, a full five or six meters high. The smoky car flipped over without slowing down at all, and when the carriage arrived, the four shire horses dragged it with great difficulty. At this moment, the sun shone obliquely, shining on the long mane of the Sharma, and the reflection was shining—the sweat of the horses glistening in the sun.

Turning over this slope, anyone who observes can see that the legs of several Shire horses have begun to tremble, and even when they reach the flat ground, they can no longer drag the carriage away, even the trotting is a little reluctant. And then, with a whistling sound, the "car" spitting black smoke actually overtook the carriage once again—and the car had already surpassed him by a full lap when he had bought the carriage less than half the way......

Finally, when they crossed the last ramp and returned to the starting point, the four Shire horses were so tired that they could barely move, and the car dragged twice their load and easily slipped them three times...