In this emergency Ford recalled the great advertising value of racing. He had designed a four-cylinder car to be put on the market the following year. If he could make a spectacular demonstration of four-cylinder construction as compared with the old motors, the success of his spring sales would be assured. Ford announced that in November he would try for the world's speed record in a four-cylinder car of his own construction. The old machine in which Barney Oldfield had made his debut as an automobile driver was brought out and overhauled. The body was rebuilt, so that in form it was much like the racing cars of to-day. Ford himself remodeled the motor. The test was to be made on the frozen surface of Lake St. Clair. The course was surveyed. On the appointed day, with Ford himself as driver, the motor car appeared for its second trial. A stiff wind was blowing over the ice. The surface of the lake, apparently smooth, was in reality seamed with slight crevices and roughened with frozen snow. Ford, muffled in a fur coat, with a fur cap pulled down over his ears, went over it anxiously, noting mentally the worst spots. Then he cranked the car, settled himself in the seat and nodded to the starter. The signal came, Ford threw on the power and was off. The car, striking the ice fissure, leaped into the air, two wheels at a time. Ford, clinging to the tiller, was almost thrown from his seat. Zig-zagging wildly, bouncing like a ball, the machine shot over the ice. Twice it almost upset, but Ford, struggling to keep the course, never shut down the power. He finished the mile in 39-1/5 seconds, beating the world's record by seven seconds. The success of next year's sales was certain. The following day when Ford reached the factory, Wills met him with an anxious face. It was pay day and there was no money. "We didn't bother you about it last week because you were so busy with the race," Wills said. "We thought up to the last minute that the check from Chicago would come. It was due two days ago. We wired yesterday and got no answer. Mr. Couzens left this morning on the early train to find out what is wrong. You know how it is; the men want their money for over Christmas. The ---- Company wants men and they're offering more money than we can pay. I'm afraid our men will quit, and if they do and we can't get out the Cincinnati order next week----" Ford knew that to raise more money from the stockholders would be impossible. They had gone in as deeply as they could. To sacrifice a block of his own stock would be to lose control of the company, and besides it would be difficult to sell it. The company was still struggling for existence; it had paid no dividends, and other automobile manufacturers were already paying the enormous profits that led in the next few years to wild, disastrous expansion in the automobile business. The Ford company had no marketable assets--nothing but the rented building, the equipment and a few unfilled orders.