There's `always something to do' on owners' three Ford Model A's
It's fair to say that Henry Ford is America's most famous automaker. Before he made the great Model T and the remarkable Model A, though, Henry Ford had filed for bankruptcy twice.
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently,” he said.
Ford was wildly successful in influencing car engineering and assembly and improved the Model T's assembly time from 14 hours to about 90 minutes. It's often said that Henry was a little stubborn. He built the Model T with very few improvements from 1908 to 1927. Henry thought some costly improvements, like an electric starter, were unnecessary.
After Ford Motor Co. had sold more than 15 million Model T vehicles, the company closed all of its more than 20 plants worldwide for six months to retool for the much better Model A Ford. The first Model A was introduced on Dec. 2, 1927, as a 1928 model. By Feb. 4, 1929, a million Model A vehicles had been sold, and by July 24 of that year, sales had reached two million. The initial price of the roadster model was $385 (about $6,473 in 2022 dollars). Model A production ended in March 1932, after 4,858,644 vehicles of various styles had been made.
The Model A came with a four-cylinder, 201-cubicinch engine that provided 40 horsepower. The transmission was an unsynchronized conventional three-speed manual with a reverse gear. The wheelbase was 103.5 inches and had four-wheel mechanical brakes, a major improvement over the Model T. The gas tank was placed on the firewall just in front of the dash and had a floating gas gauge visible to the driver. The gas flowed to the carburetor by gravity. The Model A was the first car to offer a safety glass windshield. There was no heater, but an aftermarket cast iron unit placed over the exhaust manifold was available.
This issue features three 1931 Ford Model A vehicles, all owned by Rich and Barbara Mahan, of Danville. They own a four-door sedan, a cabriolet with a rumble seat and a pickup truck. While this may seem a little redundant to some, there is a reasonable explanation why the president of Henry's A's Model A Ford Club of Livermore (in turn a chapter of the Model A Ford Club of America) owns these three vehicles. He explained that he needs a sedan if he is to drive around with four people. He needs a cabriolet with flag holders if he is requested to chauffeur a dignitary in a local parade, and he uses the pickup truck as his daily driver.
An interesting fact is that all three are identical under the bodies. In other words, one could replace the cabriolet body with the pickup body by removing some bolts. All three have the same chassis, wheelbase, engine, brakes, etc. — another of Henry Ford's brilliant engineering ideas. 1931 was the last year for the Model A.
“The four-door sedan was a popular model beginning with the '29 model through 1931, but this one has a slant windshield which just came in in late 1931,” Rich Mahan explained “The framing was all steel. Up until then, those cars were made of wood (framing) with the sheet metal being nailed on to them. This cabriolet is the same way, it has the slant windshield and is made mostly of steel. This truck is all steel, almost no wood used. This is just for the late '31s, and I like that a lot. The truck has a steel top, and that's the only model they made with a steel top.”
Mahan started his collection in 2007.
“Three years before, my wife and I were in Cottage Grove, Oregon, and the guy we were staying with says `we're going downtown to get an ice cream cone, do you want to go?' Barbara and I said “Sure,” and he pulled his '29 coupe out of the garage, opened the rumble seat and said, `That's for you. Get in.' ”
“I told Barbara, `This is fun. We need one of these.' We looked for three years. It wasn't until we went to visit a friend in Jackson, California, and on the side of route 49 sitting there with a big `For Sale' sign was a '30 coupe. A week later I drug it home. I didn't have the foggiest clue how it worked, why it worked, or what the details were.
“It's a hobby. It's a vehicle to engross you in activity. There is always something to do. You have to be a little creative sometimes, but it's all doable by you. The trick is to do it exactly the way Henry said to do it. And it you do that, they work. And if you don't, you get a world of trouble.”
I was curious and asked Mahan if he was mechanically inclined.
“I am now,” he laughed. He then confessed that he was a retired naval nuclear engineer. The Model A may be a little simpler.