Model A ice shack

R

roadster31

Member
A while ago there was a thread about unusual uses for Model A's. A friend of mine from northern Wisconsin told me of a 29 Tudor his family has that is used for an ice fishing shack! The thing has a wood-burning stove and the seats are on a swivel, the rear floor has two holes to fish through. The ice fisherman starts the wood stove, heads for the lake and fishes in style. If I was crazy enough to icefish I would have one of those. Hope the photos turn out. E LaBrash
 

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That.....Is.....Awesome! I would love to drive down the road and see that chimney smoke coming out of that A. hahaha!

Also, probably just as safe as the gasoline burning southwind firewall heaters they sold back in the day.

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Jason in TX said:
That.....Is.....Awesome! I would love to drive down the road and see that chimney smoke coming out of that A. hahaha!

Also, probably just as safe as the gasoline burning southwind firewall heaters they sold back in the day.
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A woodburning stove is nowhere near as safe as a Stewart Warner Southwind auto heater. The Southwind has no exposed flame, it is all internal in a partial vacuum within an all metal heat exchanger. There has never been an automobile fire attributed to a Southwind heater. You cannot, however, run the heater unless the engine is running and producing vacuum. The same technology is still used today for cabin heaters for small commercial aircraft. You can't use a hot water heater in an airplane with air cooled engines!

Woodburning stoves are notorious for spewing sparks, coals, and embers.
 
Good point about the sparks, coals and embers! Maybe he uses the artificial starter logs! Or maybe it's one of those televisions with a video of a fire place! haha.
 
MikeK said:
A woodburning stove is nowhere near as safe as a Stewart Warner Southwind auto heater. The Southwind has no exposed flame, it is all internal in a partial vacuum within an all metal heat exchanger. There has never been an automobile fire attributed to a Southwind heater. You cannot, however, run the heater unless the engine is running and producing vacuum. The same technology is still used today for cabin heaters for small commercial aircraft. You can't use a hot water heater in an airplane with air cooled engines!

Woodburning stoves are notorious for spewing sparks, coals, and embers.
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Thanks Mike for your reply. I was about to express my feelings also before I read yours. I have a Southwind in a 1940 Ford and am very pleased with it. I have been playing with these heaters for sometime and have read pretty extensively on them. In my opinion they are very save.
 
Now that's an awesome idea!!!

For the naysayers;

If the gas tank doesn't leak inside and the filler cap is outside, I can't see the harm in a stove inside of a sedan. Besides, if there are enough fuel fumes inside the cab to ignite, you shouldn't be driving it in the first place.
 
These Southwind heaters are intriguing. Where do they mount? Is it worth hunting around for one to restore? Any info would be appreciated!
Thanks
 
Just like the safety record on the Southwind, I bet there has never been a Model A Tudor with a wood stove inside catch fire while parked out on a lake ice fishing. :+) I'd say you'd more likely drown after said Tudor crashes through the ice and sink from the heat of the stove hovering over the ice. Now that scares me!
 
There are old Model A Ford bodies scattered all over the Green Bay from Marinette WI to Fish Creek but they are all about 30 to 100 feet under water.

They used to buy them for $5 after WWII and drive them out on the ice. Take the seats out, put in wood stoves, pile snow around them and use them for fishing shanties.

They would just leave them on the ice and when the ice went out...down they would go.

When I used to scuba dive near Chambers Island I saw a number of them on the bottom...mostly sedans...all crushed and wrecked from the ice break ups.

Sometimes a body would wash ashore on Chambers but they were all wrecked...I took home some parts over the years, but after being under water for dozens of years they were mostly junk.

One spring I found what looked like a cowl of a Cabriolet washed up on the beach. It looked like a giant had wrung it out like dish rag...I wish I had taken a picture of it. I was hardly recognizable as a Ford A but it was one for sure.

I found a busted up 29 station wagon once on the shore...not much left but the hardware and that was all twisted up.

The sedans were the body of choice for the fishing shanties.....

And NOBODY worried about fumes....they simply rolled down the windows.

My late cousin said he used to see DOZENS of model A Ford fish shanties out on the Bay of Green Bay in the late 1940's and ALL of them went down with the spring ice break ups.

Dennis L Oberer
Green Bay WI
 
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