Help Identify Great Grandfathers Car?

R

REAL32

Junior Member
What kind of car is this? Any help with make/ model/ options/ timing would help!
Also, any guess as to possible color? It does not appear to be black.

It belonged to my great grandfather who was a business person in Lake City, MN. This photo may have been taken in the teens. The full picture shows over 20 horses along the river. He ran a business that unloaded boats from the Mississippi river shore and transported goods around Lake City. I'm guessing this may have been one of the first automobiles in town.
 

Attachments

  • Great Grandfathers Auto 19xx.jpg
    Great Grandfathers Auto 19xx.jpg
    52.1 KB · Views: 126
Last edited:
The Ford appears to be the 'tourabout' model. Different from a touring car body as there are no rear doors. Ford touring cars had rear doors.

My guess is its a June 1909 early 'tourabout' or perhaps it was the runabout style and the owner added the back seat to make it a 'tourabout' That was done at times. The runabout would normally have the 'mother in law' single rear seat on the rear box.

The tourabout came along about June of 1909, model year for the 1909 ran from Oct 1908 to Sept 30 1909. So the 1909 are the first year of the Model T Ford. Those early ones prior to end of June would be painted red (touring cars) or gray (runabouts and tourabouts)

A look at the details of the tourabout of your grandfather would show the black molding trim on the lighter color body, my guess is the car is gray, similar to this photo of a new 1909 runabout. Gray with black trim.

Pics attached of 1909 runabout, an iced over 1909 tourabout, and a 1909-'10 touring car for comparisons.
 

Attachments

  • 1909 runabout gray origal postcar.jpg
    1909 runabout gray origal postcar.jpg
    35.9 KB · Views: 54
  • Tourabout real pic gray 1909.jpg
    Tourabout real pic gray 1909.jpg
    34 KB · Views: 58
  • 196542.jpg
    196542.jpg
    122.6 KB · Views: 54
Not to disparage comments already made, but I am inclined to believe that your grandfather's tourabout was red. If you take Bruce McCalley's book and look at pictures which denote colors (all pictures are in black and white), red appears as a gray, gray appears as white, and green appears as black.
 
The top is mounted the same as the touring pictured, I still vote touring. Maybe the back door is open or removed.
 
William L. Vanderburg said:
Not to disparage comments already made, but I am inclined to believe that your grandfather's tourabout was red. If you take Bruce McCalley's book and look at pictures which denote colors (all pictures are in black and white), red appears as a gray, gray appears as white, and green appears as black.
Click to expand...

While that may be true with modern panchromatic black and white films, or color photos converted to black and white, actual period photographs from 1909 could only have used orthochromatic film, which is not sensative to the red part of the spectrum. Thus, red appears black in photos take before the advent of panchromatic films in the 1920s.
 
I'm pretty sure that the tops were not standard equipment (nor were the headlights, horn or spare tires). Tops could have been installed that were not provided by Ford after the car was delivered.
 
Will N said:
While that may be true with modern panchromatic black and white films, or color photos converted to black and white, actual period photographs from 1909 could only have used orthochromatic film, which is not sensative to the red part of the spectrum. Thus, red appears black in photos take before the advent of panchromatic films in the 1920s.
Click to expand...

That color spectrum sensitivity is true but panchromatic film was commercially available as early as 1906. I'm pretty sure that not all period photos of Model T's were shot with one film over the other. It was more expensive than orthochromatic but it did exist that early.
 
The car appears to be definitely a Tourabout as mentioned earlier. If you look at the seat riser below the back of the front seat you will notice that it is curved as it forms the sill for the rear entrance. A touring is square at that point & the door fits into the squared opening.

The horse on the left is most likely a Shire.
 
William L. Vanderburg said:
That color spectrum sensitivity is true but panchromatic film was commercially available as early as 1906. I'm pretty sure that not all period photos of Model T's were shot with one film over the other. It was more expensive than orthochromatic but it did exist that early.
Click to expand...

It's true that pan film was developed in 1906, but it cost 3-4 times as much as ortho film originally. If you were going down to the drugstore to pick up film for your Brownie back in 1909 to snap a photo of your new Model T, would you choose the one that cost 4 times as much as the other? Perhaps professional photographers might, but the average joe probably didn't care about the image difference. Price was likely the decision driver. Pan film didn't come into widespread use until the mid 1920s. So I'd wager that most (not all, but most) of the early T photos taken by amateurs were snapped using Ortho film.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top