--Harvest Model "A"

FTLComm - Tisdale - September 18, 2000

Not in his wildest dreams would Henry Ford have consider the veneration and continuing respect that is given his creation that spanned more than a decade. Having visited the Ford museum in Detriot I think that Henry expected the Model "T" to be consider the first and most successful car, the vehicle that would herald the revolution in personal transportation, but the model "A", though a modern version of the "T", was almost always behind in style, technology and durability, compared to other vehicles of its era. However, they were cheap, easy to maintain and repair and a common as flies. Ford churned them out by the tens of thousands, year after year after year, almost all the same, in four basic models, the two door like this one, a two door coupe with its wonderful rumble seat, the four door, and the pickup version.

This outstandingly restored example was on display at the harvest demonstration South of Tisdale Saturday afternoon and it fit right into the scene and the general atmosphere of the warm end of harvest day.

Though this car is not a custom version, it is substantially more elaborate than anything Ford would have produced. The interior in this car is absolutely sumptuous, as is the fabulous wood steering wheel and chrome centre dashboard panel. Henry would have never gone to the expense of installing carpeting in a Model "A" as it was the entry level car of its time, designed to be inexpensive and frugal in every way, with most of them being sold during the depression, when money was worth a lot but there was very little of it for anyone. It is not all surprising that as I grew up there were lots of model "A"s driving the streets and roads of rural

Saskatchewan, well into the middle of the 1950s. By the time I got my first job working at the Langbank Co-op pumping gas (in those days you really did pump it up into a glass cylinder with a big handle) and I can remember crawling up over the fender to fill gas into model "A"s as the gas filler is located right in the middle of the car in front of the windshield. Air conditioning on the model "A" was standard equipment. While other automakers had gone to slopped front windows split in half, the model "A" came with a single piece windshield that could be openned to let the breeze in, as it swung out at the bottom. The picture above of the car's interior shows the mechanism just above and behind the steering wheel.