Chapter 370: Another Popularity
Liu Guoxiong has been mentioned in the previous article. He was born in 1960 and his ancestral home is Taishan, Guangdong. He was a gangster and was nicknamed "Troublemaker".

Since he was born, his family has lived in Tsz Wan Shan, which was an absolute slum at that time. Living in such a wooden house area, it is no wonder that Liu Guoxiong's family was a poor family living in squatters.

In the early 1970s, Liu Guoxiong dropped out of school and started working when he was in his teens, and worked as an apprentice in a nearby auto repair shop.

Liu Guoxiong is very passionate about the auto repair industry. It is precisely because of this passion that he not only works hard to learn car repair techniques, but also studies car driving techniques eagerly in his spare time.

One day, Liu Guoxiong was busy in the auto repair shop when a young man with long hair and bell-bottom pants drove a luxury car into the shop. He looked like a gangster.

Liu Guoxiong was keen on making friends. While repairing the car, he chatted with the other party. During the conversation, Liu Guoxiong learned that the visitor was Chen Zhenhua, one of the "Thirteen Tigers of Tsz Wan Shan" who was very powerful in Tsz Wan Shan. This man was nicknamed "Mao Zai" and had a ruthless style in the underworld.

"Mao Zai" also has an older brother, that is Chen Shenzhi, the leader of the "Thirteen Tigers of Tsz Wan Shan", nicknamed "Mao Dunhua", who is also quite famous in the underworld.

After that, "Mao Zai" often came to Liu Guoxiong for tea in his free time. After Liu Guoxiong became familiar with "Mao Zai", he was accepted as his younger brother. Later, the "Thirteen Tigers of Tsz Wan Shan" joined 14K together, so Liu Guoxiong also became a member of 14K.

Because he loves repairing cars, Liu Guoxiong likes to deal with luxury cars. When someone drives his car to his house for repair, he always finds an excuse to drive it out for a few laps. He really enjoys the feeling of his brain nerves getting excited while racing.

Because of this, he has always dreamed of owning a luxury car.

But after staying in the auto repair shop for many years, the salary is just enough to support myself. Thinking of buying a luxury car is nothing but a daydream.

Soon, Liu Guoxiong gave up his job as a car mechanic and followed the gangster "Mao Zai" into the underworld.

As a rookie, Liu Guoxiong became a watchman just like ordinary thugs.

"Mao Zai" was quite powerful in the mid-70s and had security rights to many hotels. Liu Guoxiong was mainly responsible for the valet parking business.

Maybe he has a special feeling for luxury cars, so when he encounters a rare luxury car, he will drive it to the street to show off without telling the customers, just like he did in the auto repair shop.

Because of his excellent experience in car repair and knowledge of luxury cars, Liu Guoxiong had already made a name for himself among the underground "speed racing gang" when he was 18 years old.

And that year was exactly 1978 when Fang Hexuan traveled through time and was reborn.

In the past four years, many things have changed.

Liu Guoxiong's two bosses Mao Dunhua and Mao Zai successively quit drugs and withdrew from the society, and he himself gradually distanced himself from 14K affairs. From the initial parking boy and security guard, after years of hard work and accumulation, he has his own car collection shop, that is, a second-hand car dealership.

Of course, in recent years he has also frequently participated in various amateur car competitions and has played a lot of underground racing.

Last November, BYD Auto was recruiting test drivers for its new models across Hong Kong. Liu Guoxiong handed over the car collection shop to his brother and his henchmen, while he himself went to the northwest of the mainland to conduct a six-month long EVO road test in harsh conditions.

Some people may wonder, why would you apply for a small test driver position when you already have your own business?

In fact, the reason is not that complicated. It is just because he loves driving (especially extreme driving), and BYD is a Hong Kong car brand founded by Mr. Fang, the richest man in China. While he is proud of it, he also wants to contribute.

As for the deeper reason, it is probably that they want to use this opportunity to establish a relationship with BYD. In the future, whether they become a new car franchisee of BYD or an official designated store that repairs and resells BYD cars, they will be in a better position to get the upper hand.

After nearly 200 days of driving for half a year, Liu Guoxiong has completely fallen in love with the EVO, especially the communication with BYD engineers along the way, which made him more and more confident in the modification and upgrade of EVO. In the eyes of true car fans, loving a car means to do your best to modify and upgrade it. Every evolution will bring a new driving experience and a full sense of accomplishment.

Therefore, after the EVO global road test was completed, Liu Guoxiong used his connections to buy a trial production car from BYD.

He did not continue to stay in BYD, but returned to his own car collection shop. In the days that followed, in addition to repairing, collecting and racing cars as usual, he also took time to study how to modify his EVO.

Every time he replaced a new part, he would drive his EVO to popular roads frequented by drag racers.

To his surprise, BYD has not yet officially launched the EVO for sale, but he has already seen several EVOs with different colors among the racing gangs.

Although it was a car crash, Liu Guoxiong was not at all nervous.

Because he is confident that with his excellent driving skills, careful modifications and the fact that EVO was originally designed for racing, he can definitely defeat a number of sports cars, including other EVOs.

This is indeed the case. In several consecutive small-scale competitions organized by the racers themselves, Liu Guoxiong won first place as expected.

As his fame grew, many car fans became interested in EVO, and those who already had EVO came to him for help in modifying them.

In fact, it was not only him who helped EVO become famous among Hong Kong car fans, but also Luo Lixian.

However, Luo Lixian and Liu Guoxiong each have their own circles and they don’t know each other.

The former are more inclined towards professional competitions and rarely attend racing parties at night, while the latter are more unconventional and do not discriminate between meat and vegetables.

But no matter what, these two talented players, who are regarded as "driving gods" by many amateur car fans, have indeed brought a lot of fame and popularity to EVO.

On October 10, when Fang Hexuan was still at the Paris Motor Show, a relatively formal competition organized by the Hong Kong Car Fans Association was held north of Kowloon.

The event starts near the intersection of Lung Cheung Road and Waterloo Road, heads east into Kwun Tong Road, continues north along Tseung Kwan O Road into Clear Water Bay Road, continues north along Sai Kung Highway and Tai Wang Tsai Road, enters Sai Sha Road in the north, continues west along Tate's Lao Shan Road, finally enters Sha Tin Road and passes through the Lion Rock Tunnel, and finally returns to the starting point of Lung Cheung Road.

The entire route is 45 km long. Although the road is not steep, the more uphill roads you go north, the higher the requirements for drivers are.

On that day, tens of thousands of car fans and spectators from all over Hong Kong showed up at the starting point. In the end, there were 86 cars participating in the race, which is the largest number in Hong Kong's car races.

As this was not an official event organized by the Hong Kong government and there were not many competitors, BYD exclusively sponsored the competition.

In the end, Liu Guoxiong won the championship with a time of 28 minutes and 37 seconds.

And his car is BYD's first model EVO, which was officially launched yesterday.

Not only did Liu Guoxiong become a little famous in front of many media, but EVO's repeated advertising bombardment by BYD also made many car fans or ordinary car buyers realize its superior driving performance.

(End of this chapter)