Technique To Count Most Remaining A's

Bob Bidonde

Bob Bidonde

Well-known member
What is a reasonable derived number of surviving Model A's including AA's? These days most if not all Model A clubs maintain membership rosters via computer data. So here is my thought.
Get MARC & MAFCA to ask all of the clubs / chapters they have on record to provide the number of Model A's they have on file so a file can be built listing club's / chapters by name and the number of A's they have in their membership rosters. Duplicate numbers can extracted and a sum based on data calculated using EXCEL software.
 
How would you account for the As and AAs that are not owned by club members? And how do you define “surviving”, given the wide variety of completeness and/or drivability? Is a running chassis a survivor? Rusty but otherwise complete non-running A in an orchard? My ‘30 TS is currently totally disassembled but I would consider it a survivor.

Good idea, though. The devil would be in the details. I have in the back of my head that the number 200,000 has been estimated.
 
The vast majority of A owners I know have nothing to do with any kind of clubs,and that includes me.Also,most of the A owners I know have nothing to do with any kind of interactions about A's on the intertube.One friend has 21 driver A's,another has four,I have four,That's close to 30 right there.People think I have the only A's in town,but there are six others that have A's that I know of for sure.I only know of them because friends sent them to me over the years looking for parts and info.Just in the past couple of years one of them commented that he wasn't sure what to do since J.C. Whitney gave up the A parts.
 
The A's listed in club rosters typically are whole vehicles. I do not expect this counting technique would be anything more than a ballpark estimate, and it will be better than any of the wild *** guesses we have now. If you have a better idea, please share it here.
 
Our club is affiliated with both MARC & MAFCA and numerous members belong to 2 or even 3 local regions and chapters. I see a lot of these cars being counted numerous times. There are some owned by members I have never seen.

I think it would be next to impossible to count all the Model As, belonging to a club or not. I know of several right now that are sitting in people's garages and not driven.
 
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My gut feeling goes along with the years-long accepted figure of 250-300 thousand surviving Model A's. For this estimate to have been endorsed and touted around by so many different Model A organisms and publications of all stripes tells me that's about as close as we're going to get on fixing a survival rate.
I fall into the category of not being affiliated with any Model A club, national or local. Yet, until just a couple years ago, I owned 11 complete Model A's at one time. Those cars don't figure into a tally based on club membership. I also agree with the statement that there are more Model A's in the hands of people who are likewise not affiliated with any organized club and therefore fall through the cracks of a "head" count (cylinder head??? :) ).
If that 250-300 thousand number seems low (it's about 5% of the total Model A's made), it's still better than the Model T's estimated survival rate, which is also commonly accepted as about the same as the Model A's. Based on a 15,000,000 production figure, the Model T's estimated survival rate is a little more than 2%. Given the production number of 1/3 as many cars, the Model A has a greater survival rate than its older brother. Of course, both estimates are based on accepting that 250-300 thousand figure. I really doubt there will ever be a reliable way of counting the number of surviving Model A and T Fords. Too many variables and potential statistic killers like cars being found every day in barns, garages, farm fields, cars LOST to hot rodders, cars lost to fires and accidents, and examples residing in yet-to-be-discovered private collections flying under the radar. But let's keep trying! It's a fun mental exercise.
Marshall
 
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Neither club has the staff to implement and track this. This a better project for someone who has interest in this to reach out to clubs and start this on their own. This is how the town cars, 255-A’s and other special interest groups do. Most the car marquee’s are track be individuals who start a registry, and not a club.
 
I don't believe there is any possible way to count the A's that are left.A lot of guys with club involvements seem to think most A owners are somehow involved with clubs,and most A guys I know that have no club involvement at all seem to think club members are a small part of the Model A world.There are no clubs right around me.
 
Y-Blockhead said:
Our club is affiliated with both MARC & MAFCA and numerous members belong to 2 or even 3 local regions and chapters. I see a lot of these cars being counted numerous times. There are some owned by members I have never seen.

I think it would be next to impossible to count all the Model As, belonging to a club or not. I know of several right now that are sitting in people's garages and not driven.
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Tell me more!
 
Any number will be a guesstimate. Don't forget to add the 20-30,000??? Hot Rods. Despite the general conciseness of MAFCA and MARC members that think they are no longer Model As.
 
Another way to get at a count would be to find out how many unique customers Snyder's has had in the past four years. I doubt they would divulge the number, but if they did, you take that number and then you double it, because I would guess the mean number of cars owned is two, if you average it out between the one car owners and the guys with 15 stashed away.

That number wouldn't tell you how many extant chassis there are, but I bet it would be a close approximation of how many running cars there are.
 
Bob, you could send a letter to each state's DMV and request they search their vehicle data base for the number of registered A's they have on file. This number could provide a more accurate count as it would include both club and non club A's. Just A thought.
 
alexiskai said:
Another way to get at a count would be to find out how many unique customers Snyder's has had in the past four years.
That number wouldn't tell you how many extant chassis there are, but I bet it would be a close approximation of how many running cars there are.
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You'd have to get the info from all suppliers and delete the duplicate customers. Many have multiple running As and ones that are not. Your count would produce a fairly accurate number of owners but not a reliable car count. Somehow you'd also have to figure on the owner who has a shop do their work. The shop would be 1 customer but may work on 10-20 cars.


CT Jack said:
Bob, you could send a letter to each state's DMV and request they search their vehicle data base for the number of registered A's they have on file. This number could provide a more accurate count as it would include both club and non club A's. Just A thought.
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For the average Joe to make that reauest would never happen - even though they could do it with a few key strokes. MAFCA or MARC may have a shot with a 100th anniversary type request for surviving 28-31 Fords registered in each state. This count wouldn't include the 1,000s of project and parts As that are not registered.
 
I agree with NKs number, but only if you add all of the bare chassis cars out there.

if only 5% of those left are bare chassis- what do you have when you ad bodies huckster, wagon speedster etc.?
 
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