Chapter 339: Stripping the Extras

By Thursday, the engineering team had gathered in the main drafting room.

Frederick Lawson was there from Plant Two, along with Samuel Harrington and his daughter Margaret from the coachworks.

Ernest stood at the chalkboard, dusting chalk off his fingers.

"We’re keeping the half-ton payload target," Ernest announced. "The engine stays based on the two-cylinder Model One. But we’re gearing it down so it won’t stall on cobblestone hills."

Lawson nodded. "Lowering the final drive helps the clutch live longer, but it cuts top speed."

"We don’t need speed," Ernest said. "Twenty miles an hour is plenty for city deliveries."

Margaret Harrington unrolled a large sheet of butcher paper showing their wooden delivery body.

"We gave it plenty of headroom so a driver can stand upright inside," Margaret explained.

Ernest eyed the drawing. "Does a delivery boy really need to stand up straight to grab a basket?"

Margaret paused. "It’s convenient."

"And it adds thirty pounds of timber and wind drag," Arthur chimed in, eyeing the cost ledger. "Every extra board costs money."

Margaret gave a dry smile. "Fair enough. If we drop the roofline six inches, we shave off weight and cut paneling costs."

She quickly sketched out the revised profile. The new body sat low to the ground for quick curbside loading, with wide rear doors and side slots for modular shelving.

Then came the real brawl: chain drive versus shaft drive.

Hollen banged his knuckles on the table. "The Model One chain drive works. It’s cheap, we already have the tooling, and our mechanics know how to fix it."

"And the chains stretch and chew through sprockets under heavy commercial loads," Lawson argued back. "A enclosed shaft-drive differential is cleaner and lasts twice as long."

"A differential we don’t have built yet," Hollen shot back. "Tooling an entirely new rear axle from scratch will cost a small fortune and take six months!"

Arthur groaned, burying his face in his hands.

Ernest held up a hand before the two engineers could start throwing slide rules.

"Enough," Ernest said. "We evaluate both on paper. If the chain drive can handle the torque during bench tests, we use it for the pilot batch to keep costs down. If it snaps, we bite the bullet on the shaft drive."

Arthur peeked through his fingers. "And the price?"

"Still under study," Ernest replied.

Arthur sighed. "Of course it is."

While the delivery van was still locked on drafting boards, the tractor line down in Plant One’s eastern shed was running into cold reality.

The first six Fieldmasters had shipped, but the shop foremen were burning through too many labor hours on the second batch.

"What’s eating up the clock?" Ernest asked Hollen as they walked the assembly bays.

"Watch them drop the transmission," Hollen grunted, pointing toward a crane.

Three mechanics were wrestling with a heavy cast-iron gearbox hanging from an overhead hook. Because the sling was off-center, the gearbox tilted awkwardly, forcing the men to pry and shove it with crowbars just to line up the chassis bolts.

It took twenty-five sweaty minutes just to seat one part.

"Every single time?" Ernest asked.

The shop foreman nodded wearily. "Pretty much, sir."

Hollen spat on the floor. "We need a dedicated balance jig. A simple cradle with two guide pins."

"How much to make one in the tool room?" Arthur asked, appearing from behind a rack of steel wheels.

"A few riels in scrap iron," Hollen said. "Cheaper than paying three grown men to wrestle iron all morning."

"Approved," Arthur said without missing a beat.

Two days later, the tool room delivered the new lifting cradle. The next transmission dropped into the frame in under four minutes, the bolt holes snapping right into place.

The workers grinned.

Small fixes like that began spreading across the line: pre-bent oil lines, dedicated wrench racks, and standardized wheel studs. The labor hours on the Fieldmaster steadily dropped toward the target line.

Then, at the end of the month, Arthur finally dropped the hammer on Project Delivery One.

He walked into the office and slapped the completed commercial survey onto Ernest’s desk.

The data came from dozens of merchants, postmasters, and small warehouse operators across Helmarte. They loved the idea of a motor van. They loved the enclosed cargo box.

Then Ernest looked at the line where businesses wrote down what they were willing to pay.

Ernest blinked. "Is this a typo?"

"Nope," Arthur said, crossing his arms. "That is the absolute ceiling of what a delivery company can spend before a horse looks better on their balance sheet."

The number was nearly twenty percent lower than the build cost of a Model One passenger car.

Hollen leaned over the paper and let out a whistle. "We can’t build a motorized van for that. Not unless we make the frame out of tin and hope it doesn’t rain."

Lawson shook his head. "Not at small volume. No chance."

The room went dead silent.

The prospective buyers weren’t being cheap. They were running real businesses with thin margins. A motorcar was a luxury toy for gentlemen, but a commercial van had to pay for its own grease. If it didn’t turn a profit, it was just dead weight.

"So," Arthur said quietly, looking at Ernest. "Do we authorize a prototype?"

Hollen waited. Lawson stayed quiet.

Ernest looked at the blueprints hanging on the wall: the neat little green van with Margaret Harrington’s low roofline, the simple two-cylinder block, and the rugged wheels.

He thought of old Wellington calmly chewing hay by the curb, and Miller loading bread baskets in the cold dawn.

Ernest slowly shook his head.

"No prototype."

Arthur blinked in surprise. Even Hollen looked taken aback.

"We don’t build until the numbers make sense," Ernest said calmly, stepping up to the chalkboard. "If the fully built van is too expensive, we change the model. We sell just the bare rolling chassis—frame, engine, wheels, and a basic driver’s bench. Let local carriage shops build the wooden box to order. That cuts our factory overhead and lets the buyer finance the body separately."

Arthur tapped his pencil against his chin. "That... actually might hit their budget."

"Refine the chassis cost," Ernest instructed Lawson and Hollen. "Strip out every brass fitting and decorative cover. If it doesn’t make the wheels turn or stop the truck, it doesn’t belong on this frame. When you can show me a build sheet that fits inside Arthur’s price ceiling, then we’ll light the forge."

Arthur let out a long breath of relief. "Thank you for being sane, Ernest."

"Don’t thank me," Ernest smiled faintly, putting his chalk away. "Thank Wellington. He taught us to keep our feet on the ground."

That evening, Ernest walked through his front door just as the hall clock chimed six-thirty.

Eleanor met him in the parlor, handing him a warm cup of spiced cider. "How was your day with the ironmongers?"

"Humbling," Ernest chuckled, sinking into the sofa beside the fire. "We’re redesigning a delivery van so it doesn’t cost more than an old horse."

Eleanor laughed softly, leaning her head against his shoulder. "I like that horse. He keeps you honest."

"He certainly does," Ernest said, watching the amber embers glow in the grate.

Tomorrow would bring more gear calculations, supplier squabbles, and shop floor headaches. But as Ernest closed his eyes, he felt a quiet sense of satisfaction.

They weren’t just building faster machines anymore. They were learning the rhythm of the streets—one practical, hard-earned lesson at a time.