Ford Model T, an Enthusiast’s Guide

CHAS PARKER, Porter Press International, £30, ISBN 978 1 913089 22 1

Originally commissioned as a Haynes Manual, but then a victim of the publisher’s shift from printed books to digital content, this project was thrown a lifeline by Philip Porter’s publishing house, so creating an interesting hybrid. Like the other books in the series it was destined for, it contains a bit of everything – history, technical spec, owners’ views, experts’ advice – and is none the worse for that. In fact, if you have never considered owning a Model T, this could be the book that may convince you to take the plunge.

Unlike most studies of the Model T, this one has been written very much from the UK perspective. Restorer and historian Neil Tuckett has contributed a lot of hands-on knowledge from his decades in the business, but there are also first-hand accounts by many other enthusiasts – including Richard Rimmer, whose business The T Service helps keep this reviewer’s own ‘T’ in rude health. There are plentiful images, both archive and contemporary, and the book’s clean design makes the most of them, even though many of the modern photos are, shall we say, informative rather than artistic.

Many of the Model Ts in the UK today are of course imports from the USA, but Ford built thousands of Ts in its factory at Trafford Park, Manchester, and one of the interesting snippets revealed by Tuckett is that for three years in the early 1920s they were built only with left-hand drive – because, he speculates, Henry Ford may have been hoping to influence the UK (and, by extension, the British Empire) to switch from right-hand drive. Imagine the consequences if he had succeeded…

‘The Model T is classless. It was a cheap vehicle in its time, and today anyone from a student to a multi-millionaire can own one,’ he sums up. This book is a great point from which to start.