What did you trade for a Model A?

4 years ago I had a 26 T coupe, ran barely and no interior. LOTS of stuff not right about it. Traded for my very nice Fordor for $1500 to boot. One of the best trades I ever made!
 
Paid cash for mine, $600 in 1966 which was a lot of money for a 21 yr old college kid.. The reason I paid so much for my '31 coupe it had a complete restoration done right except for the interior which was original and need replacing.. Engine rebuilt, trans, rear, kingpins etc etc.And a new show type flawless paint job, I sanded on that coupe many hours! I worked part time at the place that did the work, Mortimer Bros in Huntington NY, actually got paid to do some of it. I traded mechanical repairs for the interior work in early '67. The owner of the car lost interest and I was in the right place at the right time. I had a 64 Chev. Impala 327 4 speed as my reg. vehicle, but I drove the A about as much after I got it, still in love with the things.
 
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Back about 1974 or 75 I had a set of pretty nice Buick Skylark chrome wire wheels. I traded them for a 1930 2 door sedan that had no interior but pretty solid metal.
 
Patrick L. said:
Interesting stories !

Mine, boring. Traded nothing but money.
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And that's the HARDEST stuff to turn loose of! Two guys I know were laying out $15,000.00, in $100 dollar bills, on the kitchen table, for counting, for the purchase of a Model A. The buyer saw ALL that LOOT, called off the deal & put it back in his BROWN grocery bag!!!
Later, he offered me that BAG, for my 2004 Dodge Kadota, with only 27,000 miles on it---I sed, "NOOOOOOOOO!---I LOVE my BLACK TRUCK.
Bill W.
 
A friend I was in school with 50+ years ago shared this story with me recently. It's his story rather than mine, but I thought it good enough to share:

"I traded for this car. The transaction went like this. I raised corn on our farm and traded a load of corn for a horse. The horse was spirited to say the least, it almost trampled my sister but she was able to crawl under a manger to escape its feet. Dad said I would have to sell the horse. A bread salesman whom was selling bread to my father’s store said he was looking for a spirited horse. Dad said he had just the horse for him. At the time I was 13 years old. Dad knew I wanted a car and to make a long story short the bread man had a Model A Ford he wanted to sell and I traded the horse for the Model A.
PS - I still have the '31 model A coupe. I parked it in the barn in 1964 with a knocking engine and, I'm ashamed to say, I haven't touched it yet."

Yes, someday this will be another good barn find, but I'm not at liberty to share more information about it.
 
Traded another Model A. I had a coupe that was in terrible condition. No way I would ever be able to do it, at least in this decade. I have a friend who picked up my current coupe and was going to cut it up and build a hotrod. Could not let that happen. We worked a deal and I drove this one home.
 
$50 and had to work off the $50 with my cousin. It was in the 50's and the rig was a 1929 Tudor. When I was in the Army, my Dad sold it and my Model T for $20. He wanted to get rid of the "junk".
 
Four years of high school. The Coupe is my present for surviving four years in Martin Van Buren High of Queens Village, New York! When I got the Coupe from Staten Island, it was in primer and a mechanical disaster.
 
I traded a 1995 mitsubishi delica 4X4 van and my Christmas bonus last year. the car is running but still trying to get it ready to pass Japanese safety inspection to get it on the road.
 
Back in the late 50/s I bought a pinball machine for $10 and found $13 in the coin box when i got it open. I then traded it to a buddy for a 30 ccpu which needed work.
 
The bar scene, best trade I ever made.
Lost a lot of friends, but made new, and in my view, better friends.
 
Drove 900 miles, swapped the title of this 48 Plymouth for an original late 31 coupe in the truckstop parking lot, ate a burger and drove 900 miles right back home. My first Model A of 7 I've had now!

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In 1974 when I was 19, I traded a '29 CCPU that I had restored along with $200 cash for an all-original '32 Victoria. It was only missing the horn and the ash trays (a friend who saw the car before me said they were all there right before I showed up to do the trade). In any case, I knew I had made the deal of the century and I got a really nice and rare car that would be easy to restore. It hadn't run for almost 20 years, and in about 6 weeks, I had got it running and repainted it all black lacquer, and drove it from St. Louis to Miami to serve as my daily driver at college. I restored it in '83-'84, and still have it. I don't miss my truck!
 
I think I have traded my sanity. Finding wood for patterns for the 29 deluxe deivery is driving me nuts. Rod
 
My first 2 Model As, in the mid to late '50s, traded $45 cash for each of them (a couple years apart)
 
BILL WILLIAMSON said:
HOOGAH,
Had a '26 Chev Tudor, good learning experience, as it had some unusual designed stuff, like, VACUUM TANK, to suck gas from the BACK of the car, NO combustion chamber in the head, CONDENSOR, incorporated INSIDE the coil, "STAR-LIKE" diffusers in the intake ports, for better mileage, exposed push rods & lifters, & a felt pad, to oil the rocker arms:eek: AND, only had 2 wheel brakes, service brakes were BANDS around the drum & park brake was shoes, inside the drum!! AND, its' TAIL LIGHT wuz in the middle of the spare tire.
The car was a TOTALLY UNMOLESTED car, except for a 2" water pipe straight pipe. Body was perfect & original MOHAIR interior would rate an 8!!!
Bill W.
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Bill - now you're making me nostalgic! I loved the wood spoke wheels, but you may have had the all steel wheel? However I certainly won't miss the two-wheel brakes. If they got wet, driving became downright scary! Someone told me that I should change over my brake bands for a different material but I never did. Just lived on the edge!! A bloke I met who also had a '27 Chev rigged up an extended hand brake handle to give extra braking. Swore by it!
 
This story is funny because it was Neil, the guy who started this thread, that I got my beloved 1929 Ford coupe. A year or two after I got it I traded it for a 1939 deluxe coupe that was said to be "all original" and it looked it so I made the trade. After getting the 39 home I discovered some nasty past fixes and immediately tried to get my 29 back. He said no at first then said he would give me my car back for 12k. I sold the 39 in 4 days for 13k and bought my car back. Never had to get a new title or anything because he only had my 29 for a week. I never told my wife about getting my car back, she was not aware of the first two "sleepless nights" I had. When I got it back and in our driveway I told her the car is now a permanent part of our family. Thanks again Neil!!
 
Back in the mid-1960's, I traded a Model T go-kart for the running gear to go under our '29 Mail Truck. The chassis has since been powder coated, and all components rebuilt/restored. However, I soon realized that we have a 7-foot tall garage door, and the Mail Truck, when completed, will be just over 7-feet tall, so ... until I can get a taller garage access, the running gear and truck floor is all that will currently fit in the garage (although vertical wood pieces have been cut, just not installed). My nephew recently added onto his garage replete with an 8-foot tall garage door, so he will probably wind up being the custodian for this old gentleman once we can figure a way to get around his '28 rpu and '31 slant window fordor.
 
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