The Untouchables Series

But...The only time you see Model A's in that series is when an AA truck with illicit booze is blown up and bursts into flames. I have 40-50 episodes on video tape and have watched them all a couple times in the last 30 years since buying the series. If a Model A appears on the screen, you can bet its lifespan will be short. It seems as though every make of car is shown in casual street scenes EXCEPT Model A's. Didn't people drive Model A's in Chicago back then??? :)
Marshall
 
I believe "rfitzpatrick" is talking about the old 1960's TV series with Robert Stack. I know I was. Maybe Model A's are more prominently featured in the 1987 Kevin Costner movie that "updraught" references. 'Dunno. I never saw the movie. My bet is, though, if there are Model As in the movie version, they were sacrificial lambs for destruction. Who's going to blow up a 1930 Packard or Buick or Pierce-Arrow in 1987 when cheap Model A's were available to purchase and destroy? That same financial rationalization probably also guided the Desilu company when making the original TV series. Can you imagine how a former Model A owner felt after selling his car to Desilu and then seeing it blown up and burned to the ground in an "Untouchables" episode? Hmmm...Come to think of it, there have been times when I was mad enough at a Model A I was working on that blowing it up was M-I-G-H-T-Y tempting. :)
Marshall
 
In 1937, Dad bought his '28 RPU from the junk man for $25. Dad at the time was fifteen years old. Probably the only car he could afford.

At that time a 1936 Ford V8 a year old sold for about $500. Which shows how much the Model A had been "obsoleted" by a more comfortable, performing car. Growing up with Dad he much admired the 1936 Ford shown in "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir." His "ideal" car. And later built a Hubley Model of the car for his den.

Dad post WWII and with money short and a new family bought a new 1950 Ford - a car which he replaced by 1956 with a Chevrolet 210 Station Wagon - and a comment "Ford is not making cars like they used to."

Google opines:
AI Overview

The 1987 film The Untouchables is set in 1930 in Chicago, Illinois, during the Prohibition era. [1, 2]
(Note: The real-life federal agents known as "The Untouchables" operated from 1930 to 1932, and the classic 1959 TV series was set across the early 1930s from 1929 to 1935).
Click to expand...

One could opine that the Model A survived "longer" in less affluent areas such as agricultural regions, particularly the Midwest, who suffered more due to the collapse of the economy

In 1941 Dad sold the '28 RPU back to the junk man for $25 - the price having held because of the increase in the price of scrap as a result of wartime demand.

Joe K
 
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Even in the 1960s you could find Model A's in junkyards in New England. One of my club members often reminisces of the time where he could go to the junkyard and buy parts and body panels from old jalopies. He would have bought a whole good car from there if he had the money.

It still amazes me that my great-grandfather bought my car from a used Ford lot for $165 in 1937. It must have been in really good shape to fetch that much. Either that or he got swindled :o
 
What started me was a bicycle ride. I was 13 years old, and I saw this 29 model A tudor sedan sitting up on a hill, and I had never seen one before.

I knocked on the guy's door and asked him if it was for sale. He said I'll have to get back to you my son has been wanting to restore it for many years and he's in college now. He said come back next week and I'll let you know. I came back and he said you can have it for $125. I had saved up all my money from mowing all the neighbors lawns and I bought it. About 1972 I brought it to Hershey and sold it for $7,500. I have been kicking myself all this time. I wish that I could find that car, unfortunatly I lost the VIN.

I haven't stopped yet in fact, I just bought another A a couple of days ago.
 
Hello, in the movie The Untouchables you get to see Frank Nitti fall off a roof and into a 1931 Slant Windshield! I too used to watch reruns of the tv show The Untouchables when playing in early 1970,s .
 
Take what you see in the "Untouchables" TV series with a grain of salt. A BIG grain of salt. Most of it is made-up B.S., playing fast and loose with the facts and actual personalities from that era. It dances around history on the edges, sacrificing accuracy for entertainment. Even someone with only a passing knowledge of the so-called "Gangster Era" during the Depression Years can spot a million inaccuracies in these stories, entertaining though they may be. I know, I know! There is a disclaimer at the END of each episode that states the incidents portrayed are fictional or are based on actual events. How many impressionable kids in the 1960's bothered watching the credits at the end of the episodes to see this disclaimer? For years growing up, I believed what I saw in those shows. It took a lot of reading over the years to disabuse me of what I had "learned" in those shows.
For instance, Frank Nitti did not jump into the path of an oncoming subway train, as depicted in one episode. He actually committed suicide with a pistol out of a morbid fear of going to prison. After a couple years on the air, a group of Italian anti-defamation league members got Desilu to stop portraying so many of the gangsters as being of Italian extraction or with Italian surnames. To placate this vociferous minority, Desilu opened up the nationality phone book and in one episode portrayed the criminal gang members as being of Swedish extraction! Needless to say, the audience didn't buy that and the series ended shortly afterwards.
And Elliot Ness did NOT bring down Al Capone, as the series writers often insisted he did. It was a faceless Plain-Jane Treasury Department investigator who provided the numbers to prove Al Capone had not paid his taxes for years. Can you even name this hero? Nobody can. His name was Frank J. Wilson. Ask 50 people at the next antique car meet who was responsible for sending Al Capone to prison and 49 of them will say Elliot Ness, thanks to the misinformation splashed all over the "Untouchables" TV series. The 50th person asked will say: "Who's Al Capone?"
I have more "Untouchables" TV trivia on tap, including how close Desi Arnaz came to being rubbed out because of his production company's involvement with the show and its bias against a certain ethnic group. But this is enough for one lesson. History Class is dismissed.
Marshall, Keeper of All That Is Trivial
 
Old31, what year did you purchase that Model A? You state you were 13 years old but since we don’t know when you were born……. I assume that you restored the car before selling it for $7,500 (in 1972!).
 
Hello again, I read with interest Mr. Dayton post and he is correct! Hollywood fiction always over rules fact . You Tube has many videos on fact vs fiction in the movies. Even more fictional is the Wild West.Public Enemy movie was also fictional, Baby Face Nelson was killed in the battle of Bennington not after Little Bohemia .
 
PS there is an Elliot Ness museum in Couldersport Pennsylvania.Died there from a Heart Attack in 1950,s .
 
"gdmn852" -
Hey! Just WHO is this Mr. Dayton you refer to??? :) :) :)

As usual based upon your past postings, I agree with you. I watch these old "Untouchable" TV series video tape episodes every weekend while eating a frozen pizza and sometimes I am obliged to laugh and roll my eyes in disbelief at how the script writers managed to pervert and distort history to such an extreme degree just to attract a viewing audience encouraged to buy Marlboro cigarettes and Preparation-H!!! Good grief!!! Weren't the shocking true events of that era grist enough what the gangsters did to each other to fill three or four seasons of TV shows without making up a bunch of horsesh*t???? How some of these guys eliminated each other is enough to gag a maggot. Yet the "Untouchables" script writers eventually spiraled downwards in their story telling to portray criminals named Oli Swenson and Sven Jorgenson - and thereby finally killed all credibility that had been lacking all along anyway. REAL believable given the absolutely undeniable element that actually ran organized crime back then. "Oli Scarzeni"??? C'mon!!! Gimme a break!!!
Well, take these shows with the recommended BIG grain of salt I recommended earlier, thaw out a frozen Mama Bossa pizza and enjoy a trip back into Never-Neverland of Eliot Ness-dom per Desilu. And keep a sharp lookout for Model A's, but don't be dismayed when that Model AA truck transporting illegal beer is blown to bits because it had been cheap for the Desilu producers to buy in 1960. Their loss in 1960 is also OUR loss in 2026 = another one gone!
Marshall
 
Hello sorry Marshall V. Daut spell check “corrected” your name to Dayton ,my apologies.And once again I agree with the loss of cars and distortion of history.
 
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Actually, I'd prefer my name to be "Dayton" instead of "Daut". You can just imagine all the guff I've taken over my lifetime about that stupid name: "No Daut", "Mr. Dautfire", "He's dautful", and the ever-popular application when I was not invited to parties: "Without a Daut". :)

M.
 
Hello. I’m glad you have a sense of humor , my wife’s name is Honey Carol, she goes by Carol , took a lot of ribbing when she was younger.
 
Here's how I came to love original/restored Model A's:

I'm 75 years old and have been into hot rods all my life. My (late) best friend would start building a hot rod, get half way done with it, and lose interest; just to go buy another old car and start another hot rod. Some time in the mid-80's he and another mutual friend took the pristine '31 2-dr sedan body off of the frame and turned the original frame into a hot rod frame. I won't go into the modifications 'cause it's not what we're here for. He stripped the interior, installed new top wood, and sold off the fenders, running boards, splash aprons, bumpers, etc. Back then I helped him move the body off of and onto the frame a couple of times. Who knows where the drivetrain, radiator, and radiator shell went. So after he had gone on to other projects I mentioned to him a couple of times that should he ever decide to sell this Model A please give me a chance to buy it. He always said he'd probably never sell it. A few years ago he found out in February that he had a fast growing (& terminal) cancer and we buried him in April. After the funeral I got a call asking when I was coming to pick up my Model A. I said "what Model A?" Turns out that before he got too sick he went down to the Missouri DMV and put TOD (transfer on death) to friends on the titles for seven of his half done project cars. He had given me that Model A and I didn't know it until after he was gone. So I brought it home. I wanted to finish it as as hot rod with full fenders, etc. I knew several of the members of the local Model A club (Mid Missouri Model A Restorers Club) so I joined in hopes that some of those folks could steer me in the direction of how to find and install things like garnish moldings, windshield, and other stuff that I wasn't allowed to take when I picked up the A. I was told that "if it's not actually on the A that I didn't get it." This all took place in about 2018 or so. The longer I was around these guys and seeing their original/restored Model A's the more I wanted one. So I started looking for a likely candidate. I was actually elected club president for 2025. One of the members passed away in the summer of '25. His wife called me a short while after his funeral and said "I know you have admired and liked ****'s sedan. Would you like to buy it?" My response was that I couldn't possibly afford to buy a car that nice. She told me that **** had instructed her how much to sell each of his toys for. That included a "friend price" if sold to one of ****'s friends and a "retail price" if sold to a stranger. She told me how much I could buy it for, which was the smokin' hot friend price and I decided to withdraw some of the investment money that my daughter would inherit when I die and bought it. That was in August of 2025. So I've had it for a little over a year now and love it. We drive it every chance we get and have enjoyed the heck out of it. Quite often Sherry will stop what she's doing and say "let's go for a Model A ride." So that's my story and the car is in my avatar.

After sending this I read it and see that Richard's shortened name has been replaced by ****. Oh, well.
 
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