It is both fitting and ironic that the canola oil fields surrounding Nanjing’s “Slow City” in Gaochun district are also home to a recently completed facility that is quite the very opposite of slow. For this is the new Ford Nanjing Test Centre (NTC), where vehicle prototypes, for both China and abroad, are put through their paces, tweaked, and then put through their paces again, under the watchful eye of the son of a former canola oil farmer from Australia.
If NTC Test Operations Supervisor Matthew Young and his brother can give the auto giant a few more years of their precious time, their family shall have collectively knocked up a century working for Ford. Young’s involvement in the Test Centre project since its initial preparation phase back in 2012 when he first moved to China, until becoming a living, operating entity, shall make for a fitting cap to 100 years of service, of which the family can be rightfully proud.
The Nanjinger would love to say that we were the first media in China to be invited this May for a spin around the track in the new Ford Mustang. As true as the statement nevertheless is, the situation was, in actual fact, more of a happy coincidence; our visit being scheduled for a time just before an official media launch and away from some top secret testing of early vehicle prototypes. While we will never know for sure, a safe bet might be that one of those vehicles be the Ford Taurus which is soon to be launched in China.
As our tour of the facility commenced, with Young introducing the prototype under its camouflage skin that hides its true shape through optical illusion and the possibility of that Mustang joyride on the horizon, The Nanjinger started out feeling pretty elated.
The car buff among us was also fascinated. And so we were taken through the entire complex by Young himself, who made no effort to hide his enthusiasm for each and every part of the testing process, to the degree that he made himself generously late for his next appointment.
In the Squeak and Rattle 4 post road simulator, many months of driving on bumpy roads can be simulated in just a couple of weeks. Over in the Noise, Vibration & Harshness Lab, its flagship is a vast sound proofed and acoustically dead vehicle semi anechoic chamber that would, with its doors four feet thick, be the envy of any world-class recording studio. Herein, more mics are pointed at test vehicles than the president might receive when addressing the nation.
Recordings obtained here and also on the track outside can then be made available in the Listening Room, where jurors (both audio experts and ordinary car owners) don headphones to perform their own very personal kind of analysis that may even include defining the degree to which a particular sound can be termed annoying.
With a knack for drama and the tour complete, Young indicated it was next time to see the track itself, nonchalantly adding, “I’ll just go find some drivers” over his shoulder. Then the doors were flung open and standing before us, in the blazing sunshine, were three brand new model, bright orange Ford Mustangs. A sight to behold indeed.
The bends of a Constant Speed Track are excessively cambered to permit it to be thus. Yet, this first timer still found it slightly unnerving to go into such a sharp corner at 110 km/h, even with the Mustang logo on the dashboard as a pleasant distraction. Then it was onto the various simulated surfaces available, one of which reminding this correspondent of the cobbled streets of his country’s capital Edinburgh.
A welcome break for lunch in the Ford NTC canteen revealed Young’s farming background and a resultant enthusiasm for the local farming community. On the legacy of the NTC that he will eventually leave behind, he told The Nanjinger a little of his many memories, obviously, but that it is the Chinese capability for teamwork that has perhaps left him most impressed.
“I’m very proud of our talented NTC team; during the project they banded together when the most challenging problems arose and the hard work galvanised their friendships which has carried over to life after work”, he said.
With goodbyes and our best wishes said, and The Nanjinger in no way permitted behind the Mustang’s wheel, it was left to more qualified Ford employees to show us the car’s capabilities going through the twists and turns of the Precision Steering Track.
In safe hands were we, with Vince Gong (Test Track Team Leader), Kris Shen (Track Safety Coordinator) and Veruca Xu (Track Office Management) stretching the cars’ legs, and the two of us, together with Kris Zhu (Corporate Communications Manager) very much frozen into the passenger seats.
