How Do We Mass Produce a Vehicle? Part 1

Building one functional motorcar had turned out to be the easy part.

Prototype Number Two had made the run from Machine Works Number One all the way to Oriel entirely under its own power. It took hills without stalling, turned corners without tipping over, stopped cleanly when Ernest pressed the brake pedal, and managed to carry two passengers without violently loosening their teeth.

By every reasonable engineering benchmark in the realm, that was a triumphant success.

By Ernest Teucher's standards, it was merely an expensive proof of concept that cleared the desk for the actual headache.

Building a single, bespoke road carriage using master machinists was straightforward. You simply had the finest artisans in Belfast file, scrape, and polish every mating surface by hand until the whole contraption yielded.