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Two Brothers of A Motorcycle Repair Shop Built “F1” Cars
Dream is one of the bases that supports one’s existence. Sometimes it can be strange, and lead us to indulge in the wildest fantasies. Just as someone who may dream of flying, these Tangshang brothers dreamed of building F1 racecars.
Even before the taxi entered the village of Qing Long Qiao, one can spot the little car that is out of the ordinary from a distance. The view from afar reviews fiery red colors, a low exterior profile, and four exposed wheels…. it truly looked like Schumacher’s Ferrari racecar! This was what we have been looking for - the “Star of Brothers” racecar built by the Zhao brothers.
Unlike other motorcycle repair shops, the shop that belongs to the Zhao brothers did not hang a sign of the shop’s name. In its place, a gigantic sign read: “The Zhao Brothers and Mini Car F2”. “F2” was the second racecar built by the brothers. “Star of Brothers” was the third one they fabricated, code named “F3”.
The repair shop is situated on West Tangshang Electric Street near the start of the Qinglong bridge. The location is not very ideal. The brothers explained that this was due to the cheap rent. A makeshift bed for resting, a couple chairs and a table made up all of the furniture. It goes without saying that air pumps, electric welders, and replacements parts are present too. There is not a trace of garbage. The grass paintings originally depicted on the floor board have been covered by grease. This is the place where the brothers build cars.
The older brother is Zhao Xiushun, 47; the younger brother, born on the year of the Dragon, is named Zhao Xiuguo. The elder Zhao is big and tall, while the younger Zhao is small and short. The one common trait shared by the two is their tendency to smile. From the strength and the crude gripes of their handshakes, you can feel their sincerity and honesty. The elder Zhao said: “I’m a little embarrassed, my hands are dirty.” However, one can tell that the pair of hands which deal with grease all day have been thoroughly cleaned, and there was only a hint of dirty grease under the fingernails.
A few years ago, the brothers brought a Fu Kang sedan. But now, the car parked outside of the front door have changed to a white van made by Song Hua Jiang. The brothers sold their Fu Kang sedan because building cars required money. Not only that, their iron door panel, bed frame, and any available resources they had available were used to build their cars.
On June 6 of [2005], they completed the “F3”. It took them a full 9 months of efforts.
To the brothers, building a car is like tracing a painting. The only sources of information they had available were the isolated descriptions they pieced together from magazines. The brothers spent night and day going over the details of the 9 colored posters hung by their bedside wall. “These pictures were basically all we could get. Some are of races, some are of F1 remote control model cars, and some are 1:8 model dissection diagrams. All of our blueprints came from these.” The elder Zhao explained as he pointed to the posters.
The size of the brothers’ racecar is smaller than the real F1 racecars, but the length, width, and height ratios are roughly the same. They went through quite a bit of trouble before finalizing the dimensions. “It couldn’t be helped. Information on F1 racecars are well guarded. We racked our brains just trying to determine the racecar’s dimensions.” After agonizing for two days, the breakthrough came from a side-view picture of a Ferrari racecar that was on the wall. “We went to work on Schumacher’s helmet.” Xiushun pointed to the photograph and spoke pleasingly, “we have helmets. Motorcycle helmets should be roughly the same size as Schumacher’s helmet. We measured the ratio between the helmet and the racecar on the photograph, and then measured the size of a motorcycle helmet. According to the ratio between Schumacher’s helmet and his racecar, we calculated the rough dimensions of the racecar.”
Yet, knowing the racecar’s dimensions does not make fabricating a similar sized racecar an easy task. F1 racecar components are all specially made by each team. Their part sizes are completely different than the parts that are available commercially.
“Just those 4 tires, we can’t even find tires of that size. Even if we could, we can’t afford them. Just one of them cost nearly $1,000 (U.S.). 4 of them would be tens of thousands (Yuan).” The younger Zhao continued, “so, we could only use what was locally available, the tires from our van.” Because the van tires are relatively small, the brothers had to shrink the racecar’s dimensions accordingly. The final dimensions of the racecar were 3100 mm long, 1250 mm wide, and 1100 mm high.
Aside from the engine which was taken directly from a motorcycle, almost all of the parts on the “Star of Brothers” were hand made by the brothers. Real F1 racecar’s suspensions are basically independent structures composed of carbon fiber double A-arms and carbon fiber pull rods. In this regard, the brothers are envious to no ends: “We can’t afford the carbon fiber material, the build cost is too expensive. And speaking truthfully, to this day, we have never even seen a diagram of a complete F1 suspension assembly. To copy one would be completely impossible.” Thus, they relied on their own ingenuity, and made an “adjustable” suspension system utilizing welders and hammers.
“The front suspension was the most difficult. Not only does it have to be adjustable, it must also handle turning and absorb shocks.” Xiuguo explained. Although the outward appearance is similar to a F1 racecar, its performance capability is nowhere near the standards of F1. “All the parts are made out of steel. This turning ball head for example, it is made out of a the brake pad from a truck; this shock absorber is from a motorcycle, the turning pull rod is from a Xiali (Chinese car)….” Xiushun explained as he pointed. All these piecing together took the brothers to the limits of their imaginations, and it would occupy their minds both in the waking hours and in their sleep.
“The length of the pull rods, the tilt angle of the suspensions are all very particular. If they aren’t done appropriately, then not only do you not get the intended effects, you will face a new set of problems, such as resonance vibrations. When that happens, we have to disassemble and start over again. In these past few months, we have experimented over ten times before we came up with the current racecar.”
When reliving the car making experience during the past 9 months, Xiuguo said: “Although the racecar took 9 month to build, the time spent on the actual building of it didn’t take very long. Most of our time was taken up by trying to figure out how we can build it. Just for the blueprints, we went through 40-50 drafts because we didn’t know how to draw one. Sometimes an idea would pop into our heads and we would start drawing on the floor. Now I have real respect for automotive engineers. It isn’t easy, a change made to one part would end up implicating many others. It takes skills to do this.”
Don’t think the brothers didn’t pay attention to aerodynamics just because the body panels on the “Star of Brothers” were made out of an iron door panel: “other people’s cars drift more and more as they go faster, but our car go faster, it becomes steadier. This is the result of our own “wind tunnel” analysis. The elder Zhao explained: “We used a ghetto way, just a tripod, a fan, and an air pump was sufficient.” To observe how air molecules react as they flow by the car, the brothers first put a giant fan in front of the car, then collected white smokes from their motorcycle exhaust with the air pump. They released the smokes from the front of the car, and studied how the smokes flowed their way past the car. It wasn’t easy to construct a body with the right aerodynamics. Where ever it was not ideal, the brothers would start up on the changes without wasting a word. To overcome their lack of knowledge on the relevant subjects, the younger Zhao would devour books along with his daily chores. When it came to real life experimentation, a simple change in the sheet metal would often take them days.
The brothers’ racecars all have similar cool looking steering wheels that are painted in black, in the middle of which lies an eye catching large scaled liquid crystal display. “Haha, that’s just a decorative electronic watch, it doesn’t have the speedometer function yet. And the steering wheel is made out of the main frame from bicycles, we bent them ourselves.” Measuring the top speed was also a challenge. “We tested the top speed on an empty lot by the river bank. “F1” was running in front, followed by the van. The van’s speedometer showed 63 kilometers per hour, but we are using a engine from a 125, so the top speed couldn’t have been that great anyways. On our next racecar, we’ll put in an engine with bigger displacements,” said the elder Zhao.
What the brothers are really proud of is their racecar can run on either gasoline or ethanol. “Gasoline has a consumption rate that’s a liter or two less than ethanol, but it also produces less horsepower. On the other hand, ethanol is more environmental friendly than gasoline. With crude oil, the more we use, the less we have. Ethanol though, can be renewed through a variety of ways, wheat, corn….. all can be used to make ethanol. Aren’t we promoting environmental protection for the upcoming Olympic Games? We’ll need to do our part.”
The brothers are both survivors of the Great Quake of Tangshang. The greatest earthquake in term of human losses since the founding of New China also orphaned the Zhao brothers. With respect to this tragedy, the elder Zhao will only say that back then, they were small and health, thus allowing them to survive in the rubble.
In 1990, when the elder Zhao first went to the City, he was hired by a garage to be a mechanic due to his superior skills. His monthly wages was more than a 1000 Yuan, which constituted a high salary. However, the elder Zhao said he was more important to be happier and work for himself. So, after a few years, he and his brother opened up their own motorcycle repair shop in the rural village of Qing Long Qiao. Since they started realizing their dream of building racecars, their motorcycle repair shop became their workshop, and fixing motorcycles became a “secondary occupation”.
“Of course our family wasn’t happy. My wife was against us doing this from the start, and she told me I was not neglecting my real job. We couldn’t really blame them either. Since we started doing this, the money kept going in, with nothing coming back. Sometimes, I would have to ask her for more money.” Xiushun said while laughing sheepishly. “Now we are like bums living at home, sometimes I’d have to ask my wife for money so I can buy parts.” Added the elder Zhao.
“Like my older brother’s, my wife was originally against us doing this too. Not only were we not making money, it was like we were possessed because whether we were eating, sleeping, walking, this was all we could think about. Not to mention all of the household chores fell to her too. Watching her husband so infatuated with building racecars to the point of “possession”, Xiuguo’s wife eventually came to terms: “Although they work on this like there is no night and day, at least it is better than drinking or gambling.”
When we were getting ready to leave, Xiuguo told us: “As to why we are building racecars, one reason is because of our love for racecars; the other more important reason is because every racing circuit is coming to China, from F1 to various V8 car races. There are so many car manufactures in China, yet China does not have its own racecar. We are anxious. Even though our racecar is not good enough yet to enter into races, we want to let everyone know, through our actions, that Chinese people are capable of building racecars.
