What "Drove" you to the Model A?

Father Mike

Father Mike

Junior Member
Being new to the forum here at the Ford Bard, I wanted to hear your stories that brought you to fall in love with Henry's Model A. There are hundreds of antique and classic cars that call out from the past and yet the Model A seems to stand upon it's lofty perch unwilling to allow the people to avert their gaze. There is something magical about this car that has touched the minds and hearts of Americans and the world for almost a century.

My story began 21 years ago when I was 9 years old. A new friend of mine from grammar school invited me to his house to play. It was a beautiful spring afternoon without a cloud in the sky. The temperature and humidity was perfect. As the afternoon began to fade and it was almost time for me to leave, my friend's father pulled out of his garage a 1929 Ford Model A coupe. He motioned for us to jump into the rumble seat and before I realized it we were driving through the neighborhoods for almost and hour. Every person who passed us would smile or wave or honk their horns. Every now and then his father would respond with the nostalgic sound of the "ahooga" horn. Never riding in a convertible, my rumble seat experience made me feel as if I was a nine-year-old prince on my way to the coronation. My heart was racing, my thoughts wondering and the smile on my face would last for days. I felt for the first time that I was part of history.

Almost 28 years later I decided to make an investment and begin the hobby of restoring an antique car. Without a doubt in my mind I knew immediately which one I wanted... a Ford Model A. Six months ago I took the plunge and "Gertie" was now part of my life. As it so happens, being new to the whole experience of antique Ford restoration, Gertie has caused me much heartache. But every time I punch in those code numbers and see that garage door open, the same smile I had as a 9 year old boy returns to my face. It warms my heart that now, after so many years, I am not merely an admirer of history, but a preserver of it. Perhaps a more pithy saying would be: I am not just a passenger of automotive history, but rather a driver of it... and that makes me smile all the more.
 
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For me, I basically turned my father's hobby into my occupation. My father started collecting & restoring Model A's in the late 1950's. The intrigue for him started when he was able to purchase a "rough but running" '29 closed-cab pick-up on a car lot in downtown Houston. He was a backyard mechanic/painter/upholsterer/do-it-all hobbyist that "did it all" in a simple but effective way because that is all he knew back in those days. In 1960 when I was born, and even before I was old enough to remember, he & my mom would take me along on rides in this Model A. In 1963, he added to his stable and purchased his second Model A, ...a '31 Roadster. This car became the family's 2nd car when he traded in his 57 Chevy and a '58 Olds on a new '63 Chevy Impala. Since my mom knew how to drive Model A's too, I was taken to kindergarden and even 1st grade in this yellow '31 Roadster.

Thus as I was getting older, I hung out in the garage with him as he worked because he spent time with me. I also attended swap meets with him, we attended Model A tours & events together as a family, and I learned about Model A's simply because someone showed an interest and shared their passion. My father was fortunate enough to be able to retire from the petrochemical industry at the ripe old age of 52 to play with his Model A's. Today he is almost 79 years old and has been on my company's payroll for nearly a decade now tinkering on, --and restoring Model A's. As someone put it, "I am living my Father's dream." I think that is a pretty fair assessment for someone who has played with Model A's for over five decades! For me the passion is still the fun of repairing and restoring Model A's. Fortunately for me, I have a 16 year old son who shares that same passion I and my father share.

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ThAnks for asking, here's a repost of my reply to an earlier similar question:


Re: What drove you towards the Model A hobby?
My parents did this to me. As a kid they were into Pierce-Arrows and we always went to the annual Pierce Arrow Society meeting as vacation. When I was about 14 (1974) I bought my first Model "A".......a chassis and running gear with three "extra" engines that was brought home in the back of a pick up...there went $210 of my hard earned cash.

Later we sold a 38 Packard to a guy who owned a '31 Tudor. I bought the tudor and worked on it during high school and sold it (shouldn't have done that). In hindsight.....it was my parents way of keeping me out of trouble....heck I'd be in garage and not running into other trouble.

Got married in'88 and in my wife heard stories and saw pictures of the cars. We were having lunch together in 2000 in a restaurant somewhere in Georgia and a model A roadster drives by...we run out of the restaurant just to see the roadster ......several months later we bought the phaeton!

My Dad, now in a long term care facility in Indiana at age 81 and suffering from dementia still asks about the Model A even though other topics of conversation are challenging.......

It's a great hobby!!
Thanks, Mom and Dad!

(thanks for the opportunity to reminisce a bit)
 
Had them when I was a kid, then into hot rods in high school (32's, 37, 40, nomads, vettes, etc.), sold e/thing in 72 when i got married. Model A was all I could afford last year when I made decision to get something, loving every minute, especially the people on FordBarn!!!!
Paul in CT
 
Graduated Georgia Tech, where we just happen to have a cult of personality around A Models! Worked on a Fraternity Brother's Tudor to get ready for the Ramblin' Wreck parade in 1983, and was amazed at the engineering elegance of the systems (the light switch design was an epiphany for me).

Mid-life crisis: was talked out of a motorcycle by a riding friend who said that I would DIE because I didn't grow up on two wheels and was likely to kill myself starting so late.

Trolled the internet for a '75 Eldorado Convertible or '72 Cutlass Convertible.

Ran across a Cabriolet at a dealership that I had visited often (Tifton Georgia). Drove over the next day, and once the fragrance of an old A (a mix of leather, wool, oil, and 600WT) hit me, I stroked them a check, rented a trailer and brought it home.

I've been hooked ever since.
 
Mom and dad brought me home from the hospital where I was born in their 1930 phaeton in 1953. Dad bought the phaeton when he was 16 to use on his paper route. They still have the same phaeton and drive it several times a week. You might say that I was born to be a Model A person.
 
After many years of 2-wheel wrenching and touring, I decided to make a radical change. A good friend / car guy, suggested looking at a model A. Since I had recently finished restoring a 1936 house, the idea of a 30s car appealed to me.

After hunting online for several months I found a car offered by a car man deep in the Georgia pine woods. His remote and mysterious compound hosts a number of perfecto street rods, some restored Cushman scooters and other moto-goodies.

Here is the listing that caught my eye (and captured my heart).


1930 Model A Ford. Approx. 15,000 miles on rebuilt motor, matching numbers, hydraulic brakes, and overdrive added; alternator, 6 volt; Title.
NEW PARTS INSTALLED: Napa battery; rear float motor mounts; dash panel and light; hydraulic shocks; new top; 2 mirrors; radiator stone guard grill; s/s hubcaps; hood lift kit; seal beam headlights; gas cap
NEW PARTS INCLUDED, NOT INSTALLED: High compression head, and gasket; steering wheel; oil filter kit; misc. parts; 2 Model A books by Les Matthews; and other manuals.


Since then, with the help of my car friend, and > 160 FordBarn posts, I have the car in really good shape and drive it often.
 
My parents had their 1930 Deluxe Town Sedan before I was born, so I was born into the Model A. My grandparents had a '29 Coupe. They sold it when I was younger and I wish they hadn't. Then about 15 years later I bought it back from the guy they sold it to, so now it is back in the family with us. My son is 3 right now, and loves being in the "ahooga".
 
My family had "outgrown" a GMC Motorhome. My three daughters refused to try for a 39th state. In fact, they abandoned camping altogether. That was my fault. I bought a home that came with a 20' X 40' pool. No more family road trips.
I was LUCKY enough to sell the camper, so I needed something to fill the void. I suddenly had time enough to sit on the back porch and even some change jingling in my pocket. It was scary.
I couldn't afford a '37 V12 Zepher Coupe ... or a Boattailed Auburn ... so I had to start searching for my next obsession at Number 3 on my All Time Favorites list. It was another stroke of luck because a Roadster Pickup is really a whole lot cuter than those other cars. It was also lucky (although I didn't know it then) because Model A Ford's come with a lot of friends you don't even know you have.
Somebody told Roadster Pickups were rare because they were trucks and got "used up" and because they were open and got wet and rusted away. So I was surprised to find quite a few to pick from.
One was in the next town, but it was too close and it was yellow. Another was in the next state, but it was also yellow and was also probably to close. One was in Texas, but the guy had it sold already when I got there. It WASN'T YE0LLOW, anway. The next one, that I really liked was in California. It drove right and it was priced right, but that one was too FAR away. It was lucky that I drove that one because it was green. Man. I really liked green ones! And then I "discovered" one that was "undergoing restoration and not-quite-finished" just two states away. It was pricy but it was green. And I was wearing down my own sales resistance.
So I quickly achieved my objective: I no longer have any "spare" time or change in my pocket.
It's good.
 
My Uncle had his first A when I was younger and I remember looking at how tall it seemed in his garage with its huge headlights and tall radiator. I was actually affraid of the car cause every time I'd stand in front of it he would blow the ahooga horn. Everytime we'd go for a ride he would let me wear aone of the gangster hats he had in the back seat and play with the plastic tommy gun and pretend I was a gangster. A couple of years ago he got another tudor (only had it for a short time)and then got a 29 phaeton and I started going to his car club meetings and tours and the more I learned about them and rode and drove them I got hooked. I am now looking for my first A and cant wait to relive and recreate some of the memories I have had with my nephew that my uncle and I have shared.
 
Two mentors, friends of my father, Pat Salami and Tony Aleria. Over 50 years ago Pat came over to see my father. I stood next to the car listening to it run and was mesmerized by the "Sirens' Song." Made up my mind to have one. When I pushed the first one home at 14, my father was livid. Tony saw it in the yard and read my father the riot act for yelling at me. He and another great mechanic, dad's friend Eddie Navitski, a Hudson man, helped me an provided great encouragement. My father who is now 93, has come around and now wishes he had a hobby like mine as he finally had to give up golf this spring.
 
Two events brought a Model A into our life, one happy and one not. First, a good friend with whom I did a LOT of antique tractor "stuff" passed away in May 2010. Losing my tractor mentor affected me in a variety of ways, including assessing how my hobbies fit into my and my wife's life together. Started looking for something she and I could enjoy together - tractors have been and still are a part of my life but not so much hers.

And then another good friend invited me to be part of a group that annually goes to the Hershey show in October. Spent 4+ days walking the fields there and noticed that about 70% of everything I saw was Model A Ford. Came home and asked my bride what she thought of getting into the Model A hobby....she was enthusiastic about it and the rest is history....we bought our Tudor in November.
 
Remember as a young boy of nine or ten,riding around in a 28 pickup on a friends farm.A delightful experience for all of us youngsters who only rode bicycles.Four of us would cram into the cab and race this old truck around the slippery grassy field,and it took one heck of a flogging.No pickup box, just a farm constructed flat deck that got used for haying and firewood on occasion.Amazingly the one thing that always stuck in my mind was the red swirled handle on the gearshift.I'm on my second 28 PU now the first back in the seventies was a hotrod,this one will be original as i can make it ,and it will have the red swirled gearshift knob also.
 
I just kept sinking deeper into an "historical lifestyle." I've written two historical novels, reenacted half the Civil War, slept on the prairie on a hand-made oilcloth, crushed and boiled coffee over many early morning fires, collected all the mining equipage I could afford, and inherited an antique lamp collection.

The Model A was just the next great historical thing. And it is fabulous!

Now if I could just convince my wife to live in an 1850's ranchhouse without electricity or water. Any suggestions? :)
 
Fr. Mike - Welcome to the "Ford Family". Here in Ca. my Dad was an absolute car guy starting out with Model T's and A's. I grew up "steering" and "shifting" our '30 Deluxe Coupe from the age of three and "Annie" has been a lifelong member of my family. $85.00 well spent for an original owner, 46,000 mile, garage kept black beauty that has never left the San Francisco Bay Area. She left the Ford plant in San Francisco (SFA), in early August 1930. Sold new on Oct. 11, 1930 to Annie Bayless of Oakland, then luckily to my Dad in 1958.

I was essentially "born" into the Ford clan and have been happily rolling along my entire life as a Model A guy. Once you have heard that Model A exhaust note and counting out the 4 cylinders firing, you have to be hooked!

A personal note Fr. Mike. You may know a very good friend of mine - Fr. Dave Driesch also from the Pittsburgh area and currently the Pastor of Our Lady of Joy. He is from a Ford family also - but not a follower of the "A's" as we know them. A very good Priest with a tremendous amount of respect in the community.

You have a great liitle Ford as we can see. Enjoy, and thank you for the question and congrats on your recent ordination.

Be well -

C. Shelby - CA.
 
I'm a 3rd generation Ford restorer & collector so it was almost a natural that I followed suit. Growing up around Model A's and other early Fords was alot of fun and now I get to do the same thing to my kids that my father & grandfather did to me.

Now that I have a few Model A's & other old Fords of my own only helps feed the obsession. Being a Ford historian coincides quite neatly with restoring old Fords.

Bottom line, Model A's are perhaps the finest automobile ever built and one of the few cars from the 20s & 30s that you can use as a daily driver without feeling unsafe or that you are impeding the flow of traffic.
 
I was in the Marine Corps, and after I got back from Iraq, I had a handful of cash and a bad case of the old car "bug." After looking in several magazines for something "different" I decided that I wanted to build a Rat-Rod. I was a 30 year old Corporal, but was really good friends with my SNCO, a Gunnery Sergeant. I told him what I wanted to do and said that I was searching for a Model A to buy. He replied, "I've got one of those at my parent's house." I asked him if he wanted to sell it and he said that it was his grandfather's and he wanted to keep it. Nothing was mentioned about the car for about two months, and then one day he told me that I needed to buy the Model A. I was shocked, not only that he was willing to sell it, but also for the low price he was asking. I went and picked it up the following weekend (which proved to be an adventure- a 12hr drive in a '72 gas guzzling Chevy truck). After I saw how good the condition of the vehicle was, and being fascinated with the car after tinkering with it, I no longer needed a Rat-Rod and have been hooked on original As since.
 
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