While looking at another thread it prompted me wonder what years did Ford USA produce Right Hand Drive (RHD) Model T's (and if easily know the later Model A's) cars or chassis? A large part of Ford Canada’s production was RHD cars and chassis. In addition to some Canadian provinces driving on the left, they were the official supplier of Model Ts to the British Commonwealth Countries with the exception of Ireland and England. So Ford Canada produced the cars and/or chassis for South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Dominion of Newfoundland (I was fortunate to have lived there a couple of years as a child but that was after it became part of Canada), etc.

It is documented that Ford USA shipped RHD Model Ts in 1909, 1910, and 1911 in Bruce McCalley’s “Comprehensive Model T Encyclopedia” [ http://www.mtfca.com/encyclo/mccalley.htm Bruce grants us permission to use his information freely to help promote our hobby. We owe him and many others a lot of thanks for so freely sharing what they have found and compiled about our cars. And he is still compiling information – see: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/80257/111749.html for contact information for helping support his “Comprehensive Model T Encyclopedia” into the next century.] In the section of his Encyclopedia titled “Shipping Invoices” we find:

# 2,436 shipped Apr 21, 1909 - Touring Red (RHD to Australia)

#13,300 Dec 3, 1909 Touring Green (RHD, metric spark plugs to Scotland)

#14,179 Jan 3, 1910 Touring Green RHD, metric spark plugs

#15,000 Jan 15, 1910 Touring Green RHD, metric spark plugs,

#15,667 Feb 1, 1910 Chassis assembly, RHD, shipped to Canada on Jan 31! The shipping date is a rubber stamp imprint. Perhaps they forgot to change the date. [while the date is in question – the chassis was clearly RHD]

#26,900 May 31, 1910 -- Touring Green (RHD)

#57,800 Jun 5, 1911 --Touring Blue (RHD, metric spark plugs, shipped to Hungary)

Does anyone have information indicating additional years Ford USA produced or shipped RHD cars or chassis? The available microfilm copies of the shipping invoices stop during Sep 1911 but Ford USA probably made some RHD cars or chassis after that – I just don’t know what years after that. From memory I believe Argentina used RHD cars and that Ford initially supplied them with cars and then opened an assembly plant to assembly knocked down cars and later to produce many of the parts there.

I don’t have access to my copy of “In The Shadow of Detroit” but I’m 60% sure it mentioned there were times when either Ford USA or Ford of Canada built cars or perhaps chassis to help the other factory out. I’ll need to check on that later and confirm if it did or did not say that and if so – which country produced the car for the other country or if they both did. The shipping invoices above document that Ford USA shipped complete chassis to Ford Canada in 1909 and early 1910. But I think the book mentioned a later date and a specific instance when it was done again.

Any leads would be appreciated such as where to look or owners of RHD Model Ts that were not produced in Canada or England or assembled from Canadian parts in other British Commonwealth Countries.

Respectfully requested,

Hap l9l5 Model T Ford touring cut off and made into a pickup truck and l907 Model S Runabout. Sumter SC

Hap - I understand that the early records of invoices are not complete but rather complete :-/. Would it be possible to see what Fords where shipped to Denmark if any in the early years and to whome?
UK did not get an assembly plant until 1911 I think and then UK and Ireland must have been supplied fron Detroit.

Michael,

Short answer – yes, the shipping ledgers could be checked to determine which cars were shipped to Denmark. Two qualifiers – if they were shipped to a shipping outlet such as New York – then the ledger would show New York and NOT the final destination. Has anyone noticed if any of the Shipping Invoices show many countries? Four out of the seven I picked that were RHD shown above did show the country they were shipped to. Note that was taken from a very abbreviated listing the Bruce put together for his book and Comprehensive Encyclopedia. He was skipping and taking every 100th number so it could be finished in a reasonable amount of time. Also the data is arranged by car serial number/shipping date and NOT where it was shipped. So there would be a lot of looking at all the USA cars to find the Danish ones.

Longer answer:

Actually for USA engine # 1119 , Mar 3, 1909 to 69,000 or so mid-Sep 1911 they are very complete (for example they know they are missing 63,400 to 63,499 Aug 29 -30 1911 and a few others before and after that which are missing – but the vast majority are there during that time frame. Starting in mid-Sept it gets sporadic and by the end of Sep 1911 it appear Ford may have stopped keeping as detailed shipment records and/or they were not available or were not recorded when the records were converted to microfilm (16mm reels) during the 1950s.

Note the Shipping Invoices are NOT the same as the Accounts Receivable Ledgers. While they both cover some of the same time period, the Accounts Receivable cover 1903 to late 1914 and are the records of payments for cars primarily from dealers but also some private individuals. The Accounts Receivable ledgers are incomplete and contain approximately 1/4 of the dealers that received and paid for Model Ts. They are still very helpful in that they have 1/4 of the serial numbers and they were used to create a database for the early cars by Trent Boggess. And while the serial numbers during 1912 really seem to have some outliers – the ones for the 1906-1908 NRS&SR cars are much more sequential. The Accounts Receivable Ledgers also do NOT contain the extra information that is contained in the Shipping Invoices. The Shipping Invoices have a lot more detail such as the car’s color, type of coil box, type of radiator, type of lamps (E&J, Brown,etc.) if it had or did not have a top installed and what type of top, type of gas generator or if it had a prestolite tank, body maker, body number [unabashed plug and request for folks to send Hap those body numbers. See the posting “Going Home for the Holidays” at http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/40322.html and keep those cards and e-mails coming.) There was another list that is also helpful in documenting the early cars – but at the moment that name escapes me – but Trent Boggess used it to provide an excellent cross check to his earlier 1903-1909 Early Ford Database and found that the two different Ford accounting records presented very similar numbers of cars produced during the same time periods. He did NOT pursue going past Model T 1118 as the Shipping Invoices start with 1119.

So if someone has a Model T between 1119 and 69,000 they have a good chance of obtaining a copy of the original Shipping Invoice from the Benson Ford Archives. For 69,000 to 70,915 there is a fair chance they will have a copy of the Shipping Invoice and after that (ok a few numbers maybe) it goes to “we don’t have it.” But that is were someone can look at the Accounts Receivable ledgers and possibly find their car. Royce and several of us have proposed documenting those numbers in the past, but so far there has not been any sort of ground swell support to help us – so it is still a back burner project. Most recent discussion was during the 1912 body discussion at: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/118802/119926.html scroll to the bottom.

I hope that gives you additional helpful information about the Shipping Ledgers. One other comment – sometimes the original writing is just too bad to read (like mine) and sometimes it is too light to read, and sometime the microfilm is to hard to read. But it usually is there between the Mar 1909 to mid-Sep 1911.

Respectfully submitted,

Hap l9l5 Model T Ford touring cut off and made into a pickup truck and l907 Model S Runabout (serial number NOT in the Accounts Receivable Ledgers which Trent put in the 1903-1908 Early Ford database and is available as part of Bruce McCalley’s “Comprehensive Model T Encyclopedia” – but the serial numbers of the cars near ours were shipped around Oct 15, 1907)

The first Fords to "offically" arrive in Adelaide, South Australia was in August 1909 when R.J. Durance (newly appointed head of the Ford Office in Melbourne) left 4 cars with Duncan & Fraser for evaluation. At the end of this period Duncan & Fraser were appointed the Sole Distributor for South Australia and Broken Hill. These 4 Fords were RHD cars.

Earlier South Australian registration records show a single 12hp Ford car. This car reg #249 was owned by Gus Ebeling of Semaphore, but where it came from, what model it was or how it arrived in South Australia is all yet unknown.

However, Fords had been arriving since 1904. The Davies Brothers in Sydney imported the the first Ford. I have a picture taken some years later to commerate this event given to me from the Duncan family that looks like it was taken at Tarrants in Melbourne. I hope some of our Sydney & Melbourne forum readers can add more detail from their home states.

Hap, if a copy of this photo would help the EFR please let me know and I can email a large file separately. Dave C.

David,

Great photo. Yes, when you have a chance please e-mail a higher resolution copy of the photo (you can click on my name and my e-mail address is the third line down on my profile). A 300 x 300 dpi scan would be great if that is possible or anything similar to that. Then we can usually zoom in and see additional details. The car in the picture has the first style 4 row radiator rather than the later 6 row radiator. I think there is a different photo of that same car in the book “The History of Ford in Australia.” I don’t remember if that book gave the date the car was originally imported or if it only mentioned that it was the first Ford in Australia.

Note the brass trim on the top of the dash/front of the car. That was an accessory and at least one company advertised the same trim -- similar looking to that one -- for use on both the Model A Ford as well as the 1903 Cadillacs that looked very similar to the Ford and had their bodies produced by Wilson as well as Ford using Wilson. The bodies are not quite the same size -- but they are very similar in appearance and general size.

As always thank you so much for your help and support to me and more importantly to our hobby.

And for anyone else with some history, information or leads about information on the RHD cars & chassis especially the ones produced by Ford USA – please let us know. Did Ford USA produce a RHD car or chassis for all years or did they stop sometime after 1911 and if so approximately when?

Respectfully submitted,

Hap l9l5 Model T Ford touring cut off and made into a pickup truck and l907 Model S Runabout. Sumter SC.

Hap, you have already ran my engine #40880 through the system and engine only shipped to Canada. Dave C.

David - yes, thank you for previously sending that in.

All -- Another one of our T-friends from Australia sent me an e-mail stating that the first example I listed the # 2,436 Apr 21, 1909 Touring is actually listed as L H Drive and NOT RHD on the shipping document. He found his notes from several years back. And he also gave me a potential lead on someone who could check a copy of the document and confirm it is the same serial number etc.

I really appreciate the correction. We will try to have someone take another look at the shipping invoice for that car, but in the mean time, we can drop it from our example of a RHD car. In that case the earliest documented RHD Model T I have is the Dec 3, 1909 example. Hopefully there will be other corrections or additions as we go along. The goal is to make the information as accurate and helpful to others as reasonably possible. And of course this is similar to many other things. Once it is published it sometimes takes a while to inform others that it was updated.

We would welcome any other inputs, corrections, or leads for what years the USA factory produced RHD cars or chassis.

Respectfully submitted,

Hap l9l5 Model T Ford touring cut off and made into a pickup truck and l907 Model S Runabout. Sumter SC.

Hap,

With all you do I find it amazing you can do this research.

Many years ago I saw a photo, I believe it was in "Henry's Lady" of two lady Missionaries taking delivery of an RHD A Tudor at the Rouge. It was going to India.

Alex