'The Hawk in the Desert': When he couldn't afford a rally car, he built it

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CGTN Photo

"Hawk," 50, is a car mechanic in Chengdu, capital of China's southwest Sichuan Province. Unlike most of his peers, he focuses on off-road rally cars.

Huang Jinbao, who also goes by "Eagle", 50, a mechanic /by CGTN

Moreover, he handcrafted one of the cars using his own money and experience.

He named this car "Hawk in the Desert." Many of the professionals are astonished by the tools he used to make the car: a bench drill, a plasma cutter, a carbon-dioxide arc welding machine, and a box of manual tools. "Also, I have my hands. That's all I've got."

CGTN Photo

Compared to the sky-high R&D costs for the race car manufacturers, the budget for the "Hawk in the Desert" was only about 200,000 yuan.

Hawk's rally dream started three years ago, when he attended a car race with a refitted 25-year-old off-road vehicle. "The car's performance was actually far from enough for the rally. It overturned soon after the set-off."

So he decided to make a car by himself and get back in the race "fully armed."

Because he couldn't afford chromium-molybdenum steel for the frame, he turned to building steel instead. To make it curve as he wanted, he used bending tools before adjusting the angles manually.

CGTN Photo

In order to derust the frame, he towed the car to a construction site instead of a car factory. With the help of a friend, he used the device that's originally designed for derusting the tower crane foundation, on his car.

"Whenever I felt like giving up, that dream drove me to pick up the tools time and time again."

Every single cog of the "Hawk in the Desert" was fitted by himself. All his friends know that: "The car is like the apple of his eye."

But the making of the car didn't go smoothly. The first road test revealed problems. The unbalance of the hydraulic cylinders caused it hard to maneuver. Later when the steering lever broke, Hawk had to fix it night and day to catch up with the schedule.

CGTN Photo

Having solved the problems, Hawk brought his car to the Ejin Banner Rally held in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The first five kilometers were quite smooth. Yet it didn't last long before the steering lever broke again. Hawk had to reinforce it, went back to the race and drove on.

Director: Sun Chen

Editor: Ma Mingyuan, Gao Xingzi

Designer: Qu Bo

Article Written by: Zhu Siqi

Producer: Wen Yaru

Chief Editor: Lin Dongwei

Supervisor: Pang Xinhua

The story is one in The 1.3 Billion series exploring the diverse lives that make up China.