Rise of the Argentine Empire

Saint Heth didn't pay too much attention to the domestic turmoil, but he knew the time was almost right.

The construction of the two super industrial zones kept him so busy that his feet barely touched the ground. The two industrial parks, east and west, were more than 40 kilometers apart, and he rarely managed to go back home even once a week, which made his wife, Elena, complain a lot.

Such heavyweight industrial zones couldn't be handled as simply as relocating the breeding company, Hans Steel Plant, or San Martin Aircraft Factory, just by telling his subordinates to do it. It required coordination.

He hadn't shaved for many days, which made Saint Heth look quite haggard, but he was still full of energy, working on-site and solving various coordination problems.

For these two super projects, the city hall gave the green light and established a special Industrial Zone Management Committee.

The western petrochemical industrial zone was directly upgraded by Saint Heth to a directly managed committee covering 28 square kilometers, reporting directly to the city hall, no longer under the jurisdiction of the Bosca district.

The same was true for the eastern automobile industrial zone, covering 20 square kilometers, also reporting directly to the city hall, not under the jurisdiction of the Arta district.

The Arta and Bosca districts also added a special working committee to their dispatched agencies to provide support, a treatment that even the Western New Area didn't have.

The two industrial zones were directly upgraded to the same level as the Lingang Industrial Zone established last year, assisted and managed by the Blanca City Investment Promotion Department.

The petrochemical industrial zone didn't have major problems, with Maya Chemical nearby keeping an eye on it, and the industrial zone had been preparing for a long time.

Several factories of Maya Chemical were located here, and the infrastructure was relatively complete. Many devices only needed to be directly installed and debugged. Large oil storage tanks were transported from Italy for direct installation, and the special steel plant directly connected to manufacture pipelines.

The steel might not be enough, but fortunately, the reserved land of the special steel plant was sufficient to directly start building new converters. Even the coal chemical plant had to be expanded to produce coking coal for the iron-making process at Hans Steel Plant.

Saint Heth was also relatively confident in Southern Petroleum, trusting Juan's abilities. Moreover, he didn't understand petrochemicals very well, so he focused on the automobile industrial park.

After all, the cooperation with Fiat Automobiles was quite sudden. Just raising additional funds almost exhausted all of Plarrey International's cash reserves and also involved funds from the United States.

Moreover, having various production equipment was not enough. There was also rubber import and tire factory construction. Fortunately, the tire production lines of the motorcycle and tractor factories made these difficulties not very significant.

The construction of the engine factory and assembly lines were also difficult problems.

There was also an entire automobile production line, or rather a production platform, composed of five processes: stamping, welding, painting, final assembly, and the most important final inspection and testing.

Each link required the use of many machines and equipment to operate. Producing a car required many machine tools and excellent automobile workers, which was a guarantee of making a better car.

Personnel needed extensive training, but fortunately, the automotive school was already being arranged and would open in January next year.

These skilled workers and technical talents needed time.

Moreover, Fiat Group didn't provide the best technology, and even the best technology had to be debugged to possibly reach the industrial precision of the middle batch in this world.

With the support of Baron Bank loans, the factory buildings in the Lingang Industrial Zone had been under construction and had never stopped.

Building an automobile factory required a super-large factory building, and the existing factory buildings were not large enough, so they couldn't be used. Fortunately, the new large factory building had already been capped, and water, electricity, and decoration could be completed within half a month, so he had to wait patiently.

Besides the main factory area, the other supporting factory buildings were not a big problem.

This time, Saint Heth had Raytheon Industries establish Raytheon Motors, and directly separated it to be responsible for the Fiat Automobile project construction.

Saint Heth wanted to find a leader for the new company. Louis Philippe, the general manager of Raytheon Industries, was very suitable to serve as the general manager. As the head of Raytheon Industries, Philippe had done a remarkable job in developing tractors and motorcycles.

Three years ago, Philippe told Saint Heth that he once had a dream of working for Argentina's own automobile factory, and now it had finally become a reality.

From the director of the mold factory to Raytheon Industries, Raytheon Military Industry, and finally to Raytheon Industries, Philippe had made great contributions to the development of the entire Raytheon Industries.

In order to commend Philippe's contribution, Saint Heth designated Raytheon Industries to be renamed Philippe Industrial Group. The old Raytheon lightning logo was still used as the brand of the new Philippe, and 1% of the dividend rights of Philippe Industries were awarded to Philippe himself, but only the dividend rights.

The management of Philippe Industries was handed over to his deputy, Angel Toning. Angel was originally the director of the tractor factory and later became the deputy general manager of Raytheon Industries. He was experienced and very talented. Saint Heth had met him several times, and the Falcon Bureau had also investigated him many times. He was a very loyal person.

Just like the first meeting in Maria Town, Philippe was still dressed impeccably, burly, in a black suit. At the age of 40, he looked more mature than a few years ago.

Saint Heth hugged Philippe tightly. In addition to the relationship between superiors and subordinates, they also had a common dream for the Argentine automobile industry.

Philippe was in tears and didn't say anything more, then threw himself into the new work.

"Boss, you really did it."

Fiat 600s were all mature production lines, and installation and debugging were fast, not a big problem, as long as the factory building was in place.

A test track also had to be built in the industrial zone for future automobile testing.

In addition to the main factory building and test road, the other factory buildings were ready. Producing one car required more than 10,000 parts. The most difficult part of the Fiat Automobile project was still here. The reason why Saint Heth wanted to establish a machine tool factory was to process these parts.

Argentina didn't have as good conditions as Italy, and there weren't so many parts manufacturers.

There was also the production of various parts, which required the use of special steel plants to produce car chassis, car body steel beams, cold-rolled car panels, and tire factories, all of which had to be built one by one.

For this reason, Saint Heth specially established Maya Automotive Plastics Company to be responsible for various plastic parts inside the car body.

The Bono Electronics Factory in Lingang Industrial Zone would be responsible for the production and manufacture of car radios.

Blue Cloud Textile was responsible for the production and manufacture of car seats.

Other parts would be handed over to the Precision Machine Tool Factory.

… …

Saint Heth finally designed a brand new and simple brand logo for Raytheon Motors, abandoning the shield logo of Raytheon Motorcycles.

At the same time, the original long name Rayescudo was abandoned, and the abbreviation RADON in Spanish was used as the brand logo, which looked quite simple and atmospheric.

Saint Heth's exclusive car slowly entered the automobile factory area, and the huge bright silver stainless steel brand new logo hung on the 6-story headquarters building.

He sighed and, escorted by security personnel, entered the headquarters building. Building his own car wasn't easy, but fortunately, with the Fiat 600 as a foundation, the difficulty would be greatly reduced.

In the new headquarters office, Saint Hesser, in his dual capacity as the boss of Radon Motors and the mayor, sat at the head of the table, looking at these design and engineering talents.

An important development meeting was being held here. Everyone in the meeting room held their breath, so quiet it was frightening. No one dared to speak.

Argentinians building cars was hard to imagine.

In fact, everyone was unsure, even though they already knew that Saint Hesser was vaguely one of the top people in Argentina, a man who had created miracles.

Besides the 11 old team members transferred from Radon Industries by Saint Hesser, and Philip, who was responsible for the overall management of the car company, there were also 29 automotive engineers and 11 automotive designers in the meeting room. This was almost the limit of what could be found in the Argentine automotive industry.

In addition, Natalie, who had been working at New Argentina Media, would be one of the main people in charge of this project.

Natalie had risen to the position of president of the New Argentina Newspaper within New Argentina Media, growing very quickly and enjoying Saint Hesser's trust. However, recently, the New Argentina Newspaper had been too high-profile, fearing being targeted, so it had become much more low-key. Natalie had also followed him to Blanca City, giving Saint Hesser a headache.

Natalie had always been very hardworking. Before meeting Saint Hesser, although she changed jobs frequently and had worked as a laundry worker and textile worker, after becoming an informant for the Falcon Bureau,

she also went to night school and entered the New Argentina Newspaper as Saint Hesser's special assistant. Saint Hesser personally trained her for a period of time, and she also taught herself university majors and continued to study and improve.

Being able to become the president of the largest newspaper under New Argentina Media was not only because she was Saint Hesser's woman, but also because she had sufficient management skills. It would be good to let her exercise with this car project.

This girl, who grew up in the slums, had been wholeheartedly devoted to Saint Hesser after following him, and had not been in contact with any other men, which was also the reason why Saint Hesser was at ease.

Most of the talents in the meeting room came from Ford Argentina. After the Ford Argentina factory closed down a few years ago, they had already changed careers. Now, it was not easy to gather these people together.

Some of them had been snatched away by competitor SEAM. Now, what remained were some of the old, weak, sick, and disabled. In fact, poaching engineers from Italian Fiat would be the best, but because of competition, and because Saint Hesser was a little embarrassed, he hadn't moved those people from Fiat for the time being.

"Our Radon Motors' project is the same as and different from the Fiat project, but our goal is to design and produce our own independent car in five years. Fiat project engineers will also give us help."

Moreover, the production of the Fiat 600 had not yet been finalized, and poaching people was premature.

Radon Motors was still an empty shell. The people truly responsible for the Fiat project were another group. Saint Hesser fully trusted these people, only sending a few senior executives to the adjacent Fiat large automobile factory to be responsible for management, construction, and installation.

This meeting proceeded quickly. Saint Hesser newly established the Radon Motors Design Institute and had these automotive design experts prepare to create a brand new model according to his ideas. After all, the Fiat 600 was not his own child.

He called the new car project Project Radon, top secret. The chassis and engine could be the same as the Fiat 600, but eventually, everything had to be localized.

Moreover, this Fiat 600 had also obtained the right to enter the entire South American market and was completely owned by Radon Motors.

Of course, after the Fiat 600, Saint Hesser began planning to design two vehicles owned by Radon Motors. He personally drove the Fiat 600 and carefully studied the model.

He also planned to further optimize it, changing the exterior to a more classic one, like the Volkswagen Golf, Jetta, Toyota Corolla, and Honda Accord. These classic angular models were his imitation targets.

These car models had all been tested by time and were also a guarantee of future sales.

In the end, he chose the classic style of the Volkswagen Golf, with distinct lines and neat design, changing the rounded design of the Fiat 600 and adding some new elements, such as seat belts, radios, and low and high configuration versions of the car, and square headlights.

This was the first car proposed by Saint Hesser, but the Fiat 600 was a rear-wheel-drive model, while the later Golf was a front-wheel-drive model.

Radon Motors needed to adopt a brand new engine, front-wheel drive, a compact load-bearing body, and a lightweight chassis, a whole bunch of requirements.

Just having a shell wasn't enough. It was best to have Fiat's engine experts redesign it. A more fuel-efficient engine was also his goal when he asked people to design it. After all, the more fuel-efficient, the better.

In order not to make the difficulty too great, Saint Hesser also asked for a rear-wheel-drive model to be made at the same time, which made everyone breathe a sigh of relief.

In addition, the Fiat 600M also needed to be redesigned and manufactured into a cheap and easy-to-use new van. He immediately recalled the classic style of the Wuling Sunshine van from later generations.

So he immediately drew the drawings. This difficulty was not so great. It was just that the engine design, position, and all aspects needed to be restarted. He simply created a new brand called Wuling WURIN. The brand logo directly used the red Wuling logo of Wuling Sunshine to distinguish it from Radon RADON.

He was not only eyeing the Wuling Sunshine. In the future, the Wuling Hongguang and Wuling Rongguang would also be copied, oh no, designed, but this was a plan for the next stage after the Wuling Sunshine was launched. Mastering the Fiat project was currently the most important thing.

The difficulty of the Wuling Sunshine van was not so great. The engine could be shared and optimized, but it also required a lot of time and effort.

Moreover, Saint Hesser asked to design two models, which would not exist in this world for more than ten years. It was estimated that they were not even in Volkswagen's design studio. In fact, Saint Hesser wanted to poach some design talents from abroad, but the time was not right, so he had to wait patiently.

Radon Motors was still too weak, and he didn't want to mess around like the Rhein Tank Factory again. The funds were still quite tight.

Saint Hesser had considered recruiting workers in Europe, but the cost was too high, and the current money was not enough. Poaching big names was okay, but he didn't know any, so he had to give up. Cultivating his own talents might be slower, but it would be very stable.

Some old automotive technicians could still be considered for poaching from France, Germany, and Italy, but that was for use as teachers, not as workers.

So, two new car projects were freshly released, but they were different from the Fiat car project. The goal was to successfully develop an Argentine car brand and car company before the 1960s.

Saint Hesser had actually considered making a more powerful car logo, such as directly copying a Lexus LEUXS or something, but he thought that using it on the current Radon Motors was still a bit lacking. It would be a waste to make it, so it was better to lay a solid foundation and strive to finalize the Fiat 600 first.

So, he contacted Sean of Sequoia Capital and registered some car brands and logos that had not yet appeared in the United States, in case they might be used in the future. Some car brands were also registered in Argentina, but most of them were not used for the time being.

Currently, Argentina's intellectual property protection was average, and it was also necessary to register the Radon and Wuling trademarks in several neighboring countries.