Original Price?

Mr Ford might have a had a personal problem with banks in public,but in actuality Couzens and Liebold helped build Ford's vast fortune working with the banks.One interesting banking twist was how cars were paid for..Dealers borrowed cash from the banks to pay the branches cash for cars,Ford provided the banks the cash to lend to the dealers in return for a piece of the interest..essentially profiting on the car as well as the money needed to buy the car.
 
It appears to have been done at either the Dealer if he was large enough or the area assembly plant .They were added on to the base price the Dealer paid for the car [to Ford] which was not the price to the customer. There were added transport costs, plus bumpers, oil & tank of fuel & often certain extras that were common ,eg. pedal pads, tyre lock, & tyre cover.
A Service letter from 1928 notes "Spare tire & Tube when furnished with truck will be $42.05 extra".[ This was for an AA] Another '28 service letter states "Price of bumpers is $12 [ to Dealer- $15 to customer]. Price of spare tire & tube is $12.15 to Dealer. These are for cars & trucks. It also states that when all these are put on, they are added to the price of the car that customer finally pays. [ all references from P. Winnewisser 'The Legendary Model A Ford' which is probably one of the best Model A books done in recent years]. Cheers - Tom in NZ.


So does that mean the spare might have been mismatched brand, tread, etc to the other four? Seems the dealer might not have had access to what the factory installed, so put on what was available.

Is the price of the truck tire correct? The $12.15 (assume that's for cars and trucks on passenger chassis) in 1928 equates to $182 in 2019 - maybe on the high end but not unreasonable for a tire today. But the $42.05 for the AA tire equates to $630 today - seems pretty expensive.
 
So does that mean the spare might have been mismatched brand, tread, etc to the other four? Seems the dealer might not have had access to what the factory installed, so put on what was available.

Is the price of the truck tire correct? The $12.15 (assume that's for cars and trucks on passenger chassis) in 1928 equates to $182 in 2019 - maybe on the high end but not unreasonable for a tire today. But the $42.05 for the AA tire equates to $630 today - seems pretty expensive.
Yes, I believe a customer could buy his own tyre rather than Dealer sourced. I recall two references to this from old issues of Restorer magazine. While looking up info on this topic, found a pic. of a near
new Cabriolet in a Dealers which has a different brand spare to other tyres mounted on car. Another was a Business Coupe that the owner sourced a better deal on a tyre for the spare. Have also found many pics of cars being transported from the assembly plants without a spare tyre.
Re the AA tyre price, it must be correct as it comes from an original typed service letter in the book I quoted. I may have omitted that it included a tube also. I would imagine an AA tyre would not be priced as the A tyre. Tyres were not cheap in the old days. Cheers.
 
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