Chapter 495 Automobile Engine
“Currently our engine production, after remerging Cosworth, has one production plant in England and the United States. If the sales of our joint venture brand in China are satisfactory , will consider setting up a new production plant in China.”
< br>Barron came to the North American headquarters of Cosworth in Michigan this time. As part of their acquisition agreement with Ford and the Volkswagen Group, Yinglun Automobile Group acquired Cosworth, which had been divided into two. Engine company, which will be the main platform for British Automotive Group's future automotive engines.
In fact, Cosworth is also a British automobile engine manufacturing brand. Initially, the company was founded as a manufacturer of internal combustion engines for British racing cars in 1958 by Mike Haidongqing and Keith Duckworth. Founded in Sri Lanka, in the early days of the company's establishment, the personnel were all former employees and employees of Lotus Engine Co., Ltd.
However, the company later changed hands many times. In 1998, as an accessory to the Volkswagen Group's acquisition of Rolls-Royce, Cosworth also became part of Volkswagen.
But within just a few months, Volkswagen split Cosworth in two, and the racing engine division was sold to Ford Motor Company - Ford used it as a high-performance engine research and development department and provided engines to the Jaguar F1 team. .
Five years later, at the end of 2004, Ford announced that Jaguar would withdraw from F1. Cosworth once again faced the fate of being resold. As a result, the F1 team was sold to Red Bull, and Cosworth Racing Engine Company was also resold. American Champions Series (ChampCarseries) owners Kevin Kalcovin and Gerald Furst.
However, Red Bull Racing later announced that it would no longer use Cosworth engines in the 2006 season. Subsequently, many teams also changed engine manufacturers, and most of them switched to Ferrari and Toyota engine platforms. Therefore, Cosworth Voss' racing engine production company faces a crisis.
At this time, after the Caesars Fund successfully acquired three British car brands from Ford, it acquired them from Kevin Kalvin and Gerald Forster for less than US$100 million. Bought by Cosworth Racing Engines.
After acquiring Cosworth Engine Company, Audi, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, split Cosworth in two. Its civilian vehicle engine production and manufacturing department was renamed Cosworth Technology, and Ford bought back The competition engine division is called Cosworth Racing.
But both companies retain the historic name "Cosworth".
It is worth mentioning that at that time, Audi only needed the plant's rich engine research and development technology, so in the agreement with Ford at that time, Cosworth Technology, with an annual turnover of 250 million US dollars, did not include "Cosworth Technology". Voss" trademark is licensed for commercial use.
The contribution of the Cosworth Technology engine team to the Audi car factory is quite significant. The most obvious example is the 4.2-liter displacement V8 engine used in the Audi S4, Audi S6 and Audi A8; when used in the S6, it only There are 340 horses Once the power output was taken over by the Cosworth team and replaced with two KKK low-boost (0.8bar) turbines, the power immediately jumped to 450 horsepower (for RS6 models), and the maximum torque (413lbft) was reached at only 1950rpm. , continues all the way to 5600rpm.
Cosworth's skill can also be seen in the variable intake manifold - the S6's V8 engine is still equipped with a two-stage variable intake manifold, but the RS6 does not need it at all.
Although the strength of the Cosworth Technology engine factory is impeccable, the Audi car factory still decided to part with it due to practical considerations. Another reason is that Cosworth Technology, which employs more than 1,000 employees, is far away in Northamptonshire, England (there is also another production center in North America), far away from Audi's German headquarters.
Therefore, Cosworth Technology was also purchased from the Volkswagen Group as part of the Caesar Fund's acquisition of Bentley.
After the establishment of the British Automobile Group, they once again merged Cosworth Technology and Cosworth Racing to become Cosworth Engine Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the group, to provide power systems for their future products.
And Aston Martin, a subsidiary of the British Automobile Group, also has plans to return to the F1 arena - the last time the Aston Martin team appeared in the F1 arena dates back to the middle of the last century. In 1959, after winning the Le Mans 24 Hours championship and the World GT Sports Car Championship's annual manufacturers' championship, Aston Martin Racing withdrew from the formula racing scene.
The main thing is to participate in the F1 race, which is too expensive. With the strength of Aston Martin, there is no way to compete in the F1 race without the support of a wealthy group.
But now the British Automobile Group needs to rebuild the image and popularity of its brands. For a brand like Aston Martin that mainly produces supercars, it is very important for the brand image to appear in top events such as F1 - you all If you don't have a good name in F1, and you don't even appear in F1, how can you give people the confidence to buy your high-performance sports car?
Also, the F1 race itself is in the hands of Barron. His Pioneer Sports Group holds 90% of the shares of the F1 Group - you know, when a new team enters the F1 race, the timing It is very important. Ideally, it would be during the major changes to the F1 rules that happen every 5-6 years, especially when the power unit rules undergo major changes.
Otherwise, even if the new team enters the track, it may only get ashes.
Because usually, one year of experience in using a power unit can bring about an increase of almost 40-60 horsepower in the second year. These horsepower advantages are enough to smooth out the gap in aerodynamics at the next level!
If a brand spends a lot of money to get to F1 and is lapped in every race, then how can they sell their civilian cars?
Now Aston Martin's opportunities are very good. There is not only the British Automobile Group's annual R&D investment budget of more than 100 million pounds, but also the F1 competition, which is preparing to make rule changes next year. Therefore, in 2007, Aston Martin The Don Martin Racing Team will appear in the F1 arena to promote their upcoming new supercar models and SUV models.
In addition, Bentley currently uses the W12 engine from the Volkswagen Group. However, it is impossible for the British Motor Group to say that it will always let the engines of its top luxury car brands be in the hands of others.
Therefore, in addition to continuing to improve their V8 engines, Cosworth will also continue to promote the research and development of its own V12 engines.
As for production, there are currently six factories in the British Automobile Group's vehicle production, five of which are in England, namely Bentley's two factories (the Crewe factory and Wolfs in Germany). Castle factory); Aston Martin has a factory in Warwick, England; Land Rover has two factories, Solihull and Halewood; and Jaguar has a factory in Birmingham.
The plan to take over the British Automobile Group is to build new factories overseas, including Austria, Poland and Brazil, which are among the candidates, as well as a joint venture factory in China.
The local production capacity in the UK will gradually be merged, and the production of the two ultra-luxury car brands, Bentley and Aston Martin, will mainly be retained. As for Jaguar and Land Rover, they will gradually move their production capacity overseas, which is also to control the production of complete vehicles. cost.
In terms of joint venture factories, in addition to Nanjing Automobile's original production base, Nanjing Yingqi Auto Group has also signed an agreement with Jiangsu Province to build a new joint venture production base in Kunshan, which will be used in the future Jaguar, Land Rover brands and production of some Cosworth engines.
(End of this chapter)