RICHMOND, Ind. – In the relatively flat farmlands of central Indiana, near the Ohio state line, nearly 900 Ford Model Ts (and maybe four times that many enthusiasts) from all over the world were gathered for the car’s centennial anniversary. Popularly called the “Flivver” or the “Tin Lizzie” in its day – derogatory nicknames for cheap cars – the Ford Model T is the car that changed not only the United States, but the world, noted Jay Klehfoth, one of the main organizers for the Centennial Model T Party.
About 15 million Model Ts were produced from 1908 –1927 as Ford ushered in the moving assembly line that changed how products were produced. But, more importantly, before the Model T existed “94 percent of people never traveled more than 20 miles from home,” Klehfoth said. After the T’s introduction, the car allowed unprecedented freedom of movement for vast numbers of people.
Events at the Centennial Model T Party included road rallies, a fly-in of antique aircraft, parts swaps, contests aimed at disassembling and reassembling Model Ts, talks by Ford officials about future products, visits by Ford family members, and just the camaraderie of T owners. The celebration of the automotive icon may be one of the few bright spots for Ford Motor Company which on July 24 posted a shocking $8.7 billion loss for the second quarter of 2008 and announced a new round of job cuts and switching production from its truck and sport-utility vehicle lines to smaller cars.
Instead the muddy, rutted roads that the Model Ts originally contended with – America had the worst roads in the industrialized world in the early 1900s – modern freeways and asphalt two-lane roads are the norm around Richmond, Ind. While original Model T owners might be able to find a general store that sold gasoline from measuring cups and an old stagecoach lodge, the centennial participants could drive to Starbucks, visit Walmart, fill up at a local gas station, or stay in the local Holiday Inn or other motels (note, the word “motel” or motor hotel probably wouldn’t have existed without the success of the Model T).
Despite the prevalence of modern conveniences and corporate retail icons in the area, Klehfoth said that the centennial part was being held in central Indiana because it had “quiet, peaceful” areas and a large Amish community nearby. In some cases, an Amish farmer or two riding on a horse-drawn buggy were visible as Model T owners shuttled visitors around.
“Additionally, Indiana is pretty centrally located,” Klehfoth said. Richmond is also home to the Model T Museum, which Jay and his wife, Barabara Klehfoth, founded.
Coming to the Model T celebration was Edsel Ford II, member of the Ford board of directors, and the great grandson of Henry Ford. Edsel is from the fourth generation of the family to take up an active role in the company along with his cousin, Bill Ford Jr., who is the chairman.
Edsel Ford II’s grandfather (and Bill Ford Jr.’s) was Edsel Ford I, Henry Ford’s only child and a famed automotive designer whose name became associated with Ford’s ill-fated Edsel division in the 1950s. His father was Henry Ford II, who led the automaker after World War II through 1979.
“When we look at the phenomenal success of the Model T, we have a tendency to concentrate on lot on the hardware,” Edsel Ford II told the assembled T owners during the opening ceremony. “We tend to point out that it was the first moderately-priced production automobile built with interchangeable parts; the first Ford production car to use an engine produced by Ford Motor Co… What happened was something completely separate and distinct from the hardware and the plants that made the Model T.”
The essence of the Model T was the experience that it delivered to many new automobile owners – that of freedom, Ford said. “It was (my great grandfather’s) dream that the Model T owner would use it – in his words – to enjoy with his family the blessing of God, the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces,” Ford continued.
Model Ts weren’t just owned by people, they were trusted as members of the family. Many people gave their Ts names as if they were members of the family. In addition to celebrating with the Model T owners – the “keepers” of Henry Ford’s legacy – Edsel Ford II noted that there is a fifth generation of Ford family members working at the automaker. He then introduced, “Ford Motor Company’s newest purchasing analyst for North American programs and my eldest son, Henry Ford III,” to the applause of the gathered owners.
The Model T was designed and first built in Detroit, at a small, three-story brick factory called the Piquette Plant. Prototype Model Ts were probably driving around in the summer of 1908, but the first production hand-built Model T wasn’t produced until September 27 of that year.
As the cars became successful, Ford Motor quickly out grew the Piquette Plant and built Highland Park, where the assembly line was born. Ford sold six-year-old Piquette Plant to Studebaker in 1910.
Versatile, the Model T came in a number of different body styles including open-air roadsters, speedsters, coupes, sedans, etc. Made to be flexible to handle the rough roads, they were also simple to operate. The factory turned them out with few accessories – many models didn’t have a door for the driver, for example, to cut costs – but a vast aftermarket industry sprung up to supply T owners with items such as fuel gauges (instead of the wooden ruler that drivers used to check out how much gas was in the tank).
When looking at the ungainly Model T today – a car that you might have to back up a steep hill so it won’t conk out (that’s because it has a gravity feed system from the gas tank the driver sits over to the engine) – you might not think of them as speedy. Well, the T had a “speedster” body style available and other people modified them in the best early hot rod tradition to go faster way faster than 40 mph.
One such example was the car owned by Cass Casmir of Hammond, Ind. Using a Model T chassis and four cylinder crank-start engine, his dirt race car that was built sometime in the late 1920s (or even the early 1930s) after Ford stopped producing the Model T. With its original paint job – and advertising for Gust’s Auto Parts of Chicago that went out of business in 1934 and the defunct C&L Service of Chicago – the car had a steel body and the only wood on it might be under the ragged black leather seat cushion. “I found this in a garage in Chicago a little over a year and a half ago. The grandson of the guy who raced it wasn’t interested in it. He just wanted to get rid of it,” Casmir said.
In its day, Casmir figured that the car would have been able to travel at well over 100 miles per hour. He hasn’t had a chance to test it out yet, because it is still in nonworking condition. Like any hot rod, Casmir’s T is a conglomeration of parts. Its engine was supercharged with a single overhead cam like a more modern vehicle, but a 1929 Ford Model A transmission and a 1927 Chevrolet rear end.
“Model Ts were popular with early racers well into the 1930s because a lot of racing equipment was still available,” Casmir added. Another fast Model T was Pete Beckloff’s blinding yellow 1915 speedster. From Hyannis on Cape Code, Massachusetts, his dream was to buy an old Stutz Bearcat (a premium American car brand that lasted from 1914 until 1934); however, he didn’t have the money to purchase one.
Instead, three years ago, Beckloff began with “a bunch of junk” and constructed a Model T version of his desired automobile, complete with brass trim and a monocle-style windshield for the driver. “The passenger gets to eat bugs,” he said mirthfully. The owner of a robotics machinery company that supplies Titleist, the golfing accessories company, Beckloff said that he also has built other cars, airplanes and boats with his spare time. “The hardest part on this car was figuring out the right proportions, then painting, and bending the brass work into the right shapes,” he added.
Before cars were decked out in chrome bumpers and other exterior trim (a style that went out of favor by the 1990s for most cars, but still favored on pickup trucks and SUVs), there was the “brass era.” From the 1890s up through the beginning of World War I, cars were trimmed with brass fittings for their headlamps and other accessories.
Jerome Casper’s 1911 Model T, with its torpedo body style, was decked out with brass kerosene side lamps, and the acetylene gas headlamps that were fed from an all-brass fuel tank mounted on the driver’s-side running board. “I’ve had this one for 2 ½ years,” noted Casper, a resident of Springfield, Illinois. “The ‘fella’ I bought it off of had it since the 1980s. I brought it up to a more period-correct look.”
As one of Ford’s more sporty models, the torpedo style is the only 1911 Ford that had doors while the seat sits back further and the steering column is longer than the standard runabouts of the time, Casper added. Cramped quarters would be the best way to describe the “bird dog palace” – an upright rectangular box of metal – that sat on the driver’s side running board of Ben and Nancy Hardeman’s 1926 Model T pickup truck.
“We don’t know much about it, but on the side was a reproduction of a magazine ad,” Ben Hardeman said. “They were manufactured in Golden City, Missouri and they had two models – a one-dog palace and a two-dog palace… but don’t give dog much room." The advertisement claimed that the “palace” offered comfort to the dog, along with permitting the driver to release the animal without leaving his car seat. The Hardeman’s dog, an adult-size Golden Retriever, however, refused to be loaded into the cage. “When she was smaller we used put her in, but she doesn’t like it now,” Nancy Hardeman added.
The Hardeman’s were among the group of Model T owners who took cross-country camping trips – in their case to go from their home in Bryan, Texas, to Richmond, Indiana. They towed a vintage camping trailer that had been built in Bay City, Michigan. In doing so, they were following a tradition that came into existence with advent of the car – going out as a family to see the world.
“People did a lot of camping with their Model Ts, because it was the first chance that ordinary people had to get away from home,” Nancy noted. There weren’t hotels or restaurants, so they went camping. Things we could do in three hours took them a multi-day trip.”
Today, Model T excursions are perfect for family bonding, she added. When she married Ben Hardeman, who had been a Model T fanatic since his youth, they took a T on their honeymoon. “Model T camping is a fun thing for a family to do,” Nancy said. “Ben’s girls have been riding in these cars since they were babies. One of them is married to a man she met on a Model T trip.”
Driving 2,500 miles from his home in Madras, Oregon, Dennis Prince was one of dozens of T owners who went off-roading with their cars and camped along the way. “The roads are technologically much better than they were in the early 1900s,” Prince said. “But for me, this trip was a personal triumph because I’ve always wanted to do it since high school.”
For off-roading, he carried an ax, shovel, and chains. For camping, the he had a stash of modern equipment along with period items including a potato peeler and meet turner. On top of Model T’s engine was a cooking box for food. “The engine compartment doesn’t get hot enough to actually cook stuff, but it’s good for reheating and keeping things warming,” Prince said. “I had a pot roast and potatoes out of it and even a burrito.”
Although he owns four other Model Ts, a Ford Model A and cars from the 1950s and 1960s, Prince used the worn-looking 1924 T that was equipped with bigger tires and brakes – aftermarket accessories available from that era – but under the hood it was equipped with a nonstandard high compression head. “It probably has about 27 to 28 horsepower and I’ve clocked it at 52 mph, but once you get above 46 mph, the wind buffets around the windshield and that’s not good for driving,” Prince noted.
Dean Yoder’s home in Iowa City, Iowa, is about 440 miles from Richmond, Indiana, but his journey from home to the centennial party took seven weeks and 10,160 miles – thanks to a camping trip to Dawson City in the Yukon and neighboring Alaska while pulling a vintage trailer. “I want to drive a gravel road and the longest one I could find was in Alaska,” Yoder said. “And, you see more out of a Model T going 35 to 40 miles per hour than you see out of a car going 70.”
On his journey, Yoder only suffered one flat tire, though he replaced the tires three times (the modern reproduction Model T tires apparently aren’t made as well as the original Firestones). Yoder acquired his 1924 Model T in from an estate sale of a Missouri man in 1997 and since then he replaced the crankshaft and put in a rebuilt motor. But, after 55,000 miles (including the Alaska trip) he reported that the T is still “going strong.” “I’m running a vintage high compression head, but other than that it is pretty much stock,” Yoder said. “It has Rocky Mountain brakes and a Ruckstell rear end. When pulling a trailer, the Ruckstell is almost a necessity so you don’t have to hold your foot to the floor and wear the low-speed band down.”
The Rocky Mountain drum-like brakes and Ruckstell axle were among the thousands of aftermarket parts available to Model T owners who wanted more accessories than were available from Ford’s barebones factory models.
Yoder’s trailer, which he equipped with a Conestoga-like canopy, also was noteworthy. “It’s made with rivet construction and is probably from the ‘20s or the ‘30s,” Yoder said. “Interestingly, it has a wiring harness that is the same that used for the Model T headlights. So, I figured it could have been pulled behind a Model T in its day.”
One of the more unusual vehicles at the fairgrounds was Virgil Floyd’s effort to recreate a house car with his 1919 Model T one-ton truck. Called recreation vehicles (RVs) nowadays, house cars were primarily used by people working out in the fields, though occasionally people used them to go on vacation.
Built with a shell of plywood, Floyd said that the house car’s body was completed in January this year. “I’ve been collecting Model Ts for 36 years,” Floyd noted. “I always liked the idea of having a house car… when it got close to the centennial, I thought it was a good reason to build one.”
Starting with a rusty Model T truck chassis and a rebuilt motor, Floyd equipped the house car with larger accessory brakes, a tilt steering wheel, and “jumbo truck transmission.” He also built a porch off the back and added a rain gutter “I’ve never weighed it, but it’s so heavy that when you put the car in overdrive, it can’t pull itself,” he said. “So, I keep it in direct drive. It will go 25 mph. It’s good on level roads, but can be a trip to steer.”
A section of the fairgrounds was set aside for “Gasoline Alley” – the spot where car owners could go to repair their machines for anything from piston problems, a broken axle, or from mishaps.
Roy Reisinger, instructor for the Richmond (Ind.) Career Center, which is a vocational school for auto mechanics, and student Nathan Beach found themselves in gasoline alley for a minor “fender bender” – or in this case a punched radiator. When it had been sprinkling, Beach drove the red speedster a little too fast into a barn and accidentally hit the backend of a Model T pickup. “This Model T was a high school project. It was a pile of parts when we started two years ago,” Reisinger said. “Thirty students worked on it off and on. Nathan and I had worked on it the last six week to finish it.”
After the centennial party, Reisinger said he’d like to take the speedster to southern Indiana for a hill climb race, then showcased at the Model T Museum for a while before returning to the school where it will be used as a teaching project and updated.
Model T celebrations will continue in Michigan on Sept. 27, the official date when the “job one” T was built at the Piquette Plant in Detroit. There will be a motorcade of Model Ts and other Ford vehicles that will start at Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn, and will travel to the still-standing Piquette Plant, then journey to the Edsel & Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Point (that would be Henry Ford’s son).
From the mansion on Lake St. Clair, the motorcade will proceed to The Henry Ford Estate-Fair Lane, which is the castle-like mansion that was owned by Henry and Clara Ford in Dearborn. From Fair Lane, the motorcade will travel to a celebration at the Henry Ford Museum. Billed as the “Ford Four,” this will be Ford Motor Co.’s official recognition of the Model T in Michigan.
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