I have a question

I have been seated on the fender of many a prewar car for the 18 mile ride out from Boise to the Toll Gate where we lived. All dirt roads, feet braced against the front bumper and hugging the headlight to not get bumped off the car. Two kids on each side, one holding onto doorposts and standing on running boards and two sitting on the front fenders. Car full of four adults and a cab driver, plus everything they had purchased and luggage for the stay in town. Yellow cab from Idanha Hotel home. Never lost so much as a shoe. Cost about $3.00 for all that and took about 2 hours including stops to pick up mail and visit people near the street or road. (Round trip for cabbie)
 
Remember Riding on front fender of WWII surplus GMC hanging on to headlights and hugging close to hood in the winter trying to keep warm and trying to stay away from the hood in the summer,hanging out in the wind, now I get stopped for not having my seat belt on????
 
We recently had a 28 Chrysler roadster in the shop and compared that next to a 28 Model A there is a huge difference in the amount of cabin space between the two cars.
 
Back when I was a kid you did not see many way over weight people like you do today. A lot of People in our area our way over weight now. The health care will have lots of business.
 
My 48 Mercury convertible feels fine. When driving my 48 F-1, I drive with the seat all the way back and it is still tight. My 24 Model T is REALLY tight, no leg room at all and I'm only 5 ft 10 in. One good thing- in those days your girl friend had to sit close!

Bill in Conn.
 
As many have said most folks from that period were noticely smaller in height and waist size. Notice I said most my granddad was 6/8 and weighed 325 granny was all of 4/7 and was all of 80 pounds dripping wet. Granddad had a new 30 coupe and I always wondered how the heck he and granny fit. But it served them for almost 40 years. He replaced it in 1970 with a new Dodge Polara that was huge in comparison to almost anything especially the old A .
And the dodge payed the price within a few months it looked like a demolition derby car, it. Was dented everywhere. He always complained about the parking spaces ,roads etc were just smaller. After a year he was not able to keep his license due to all of the fender benders and granny then became the car driver of the family.
He sold the A while I was in the service, I would have certainly tried to have gotten from them if I was at home. By the way the dodge sold at the end of the first year only brought 600.00 because of all of the body damages .and she got a new Rambler that was a lot smaller than the Dodge.
 
im 6ft and there was panel at the bottom back of my seat keeping it from going all the way back, but its comfortable. I think it was just a different era and now cars are easier to get into. go find a hard top 40s jeep and those can feel very small.
 
Close to 30% of the men who reported to the draft centers during WWII were rejected. The depression caused a lot of growth problems for people who were already shorter that us. Post WWII kids were raised with more protein and Carbs. We were LUCKY.
 
Our GENERATION has been indeed LUCKY, might just be that we mostly followed the only laws needed commonly referred to as the :
TEN COMMANDMENTS
 
My wife and I collect some WWII uniforms which are definitely small on todays folks. Some of that was the population coming out the depression, but take a look at the bunks on the USS New Jersey and other contemporary warships and they're small. Check those on the Constitution and you can really see it - people were just smaller.

Interestingly, the US population overall at the beginning of WWII was considered the healthiest it had ever been mostly due to the unavailability of things we shouldn't be eating in quantities we shouldn't be eating (the availability of antibiotics and other medical interventions aside).
 
Most everything we ate back then we raised in our own gardens! My dad never weighed over 130 pounds and he was 6 foot 2 inches tall. Dont really think antibiotics and medical interventions do any good either....
 
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I don't know whether it's a factual legend or not, but I read somewhere that Henry Ford had the car designed so it was comfortable for someone his size. He was uncommonly tall, at 5' 10", and the assumption was that if it fit him, it would fit anyone.
 
steve s said:
I don't know whether it's a factual legend or not, but I read somewhere that Henry Ford had the car designed so it was comfortable for someone his size. He was uncommonly tall, at 5' 10", and the assumption was that if it fit him, it would fit anyone.
Click to expand...

I'm 5'10" and 180. My '30 CCPU fits me fine, just barely though.
 
My wife is a petite 5'2" and we collect vintage clothing. When in Buenos Aires she tried on some 1920's vintage clothes and they were all too small indicating that people were a lot smaller back then. Unfortunately, today, obesity is almost considered normal and it is the width of many at waist and backside that makes fitting into a Model A a trial.
Certainly back in the '60's we could fit three abreast in the front seat of my phaeton, but all three of us were slim by todays standards. I too am 5'10" and 163 lbs as I was in the 60's. I can certainly understand that anyone over 6'0" would have difficulty fitting into a standard Model A and recent generations have been getting taller than that.
 
Cheez, it's a looong time since I had to even convert from metric to the old imperial system (really shows up how much better it is) but I'm 6' and 190 pounds. I find no problems with any of my As ('29 Phaeton, '28 Tudor and '30 CCPU)
 
These vehicles are like the old shirts hanging in my closet seems like every time I try to were one my wife notices how much they have shrunk just hanging there???
Maybe I should install a "Grow Light", I may have one somewhere in my garage left over from the 60"s. Maybe I can get a government grant to fund my research.
 
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