Courtesy RM Auctions....Just FYI
By July 1903, the Ford Motor Company was less than a month old, but already facing a serious crisis. The company’s cash reserves were dwindling in inverse proportion to the clamoring of creditors, and not one order had come in for Henry Ford’s new light automobile, the Model A. With just $223.65 to its name, it looked as though the company would fold just as quickly as it had started, but then during the week of July 13 orders came in for three Model As, including the one that RM Auctions will offer at its upcoming Hershey event.
The whereabouts of Model As #9 and #11 remain a mystery, making Model A #30 the oldest known product of the same Ford Motor Company that has over the last 109 years become a behemoth in global auto manufacturing. Coming into the auction house’s Hershey sale, RM has placed a $300,000 to $500,000 pre-auction estimate on the Model A.
RM’s Hershey auction will take place October 11-12 at the Hershey Lodge.
For more information, visit RMAuctions.com.
Interesting. When we were in Dearborn in 2003 for the Ford Centennial, there was a Model A from Ontario that had been in the same family since new. It was parked behind our hotel and I got this picture of it. I have no idea what its serial number is, but perhaps one of our Ontario members is familiar with the car.
More of the story over at the Hemmings Blog:
http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2012/09/05/oldest-existing-ford-motor-company-vehicle-to-cross-the-block/?refer=news
Hmmmm I don't believe Model A serial #30 is the oldest known product of Ford Motor Company that exists. I believe there is a single digit serial number Model A in the hands of a collector in Allen Park, MI.
It says the oldest to be auctioned, not that it's the oldest known to exist.
I disagree, Ken. The subject line of this thread is ambiguous, but the quoted text says in part, "The whereabouts of Model As #9 and #11 remain a mystery, making Model A #30 the oldest known product of the same Ford Motor Company that has over the last 109 years become a behemoth in global auto manufacturing."
This auction lists 1903 Ford A vin number 12
Rare Steam, Electric, and Early Brass Vehicles, Parts, 1913 Harley Davidson, & More.. The Schuchardt
Date: Saturday, September 15, 2012
Location: 100 St. Joe ST, Spearfish, South Dakota 57783
Ok, I see now. Sorry Royce. So the first three orders were for #9, 11 and 30? How does that work? Is RM just trying to hype the sale?
As a side note; Looks like Ford was on his way with interchangeable parts from the beginning. The 4-seat looks exactly like the 2-seat version with some add-on wood seats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydcoMrHfxiY
I think this is the link.......
The obvious answer is that cars were not built in serial number order. This car is documented and has been since the day it was ordered. This is the provenance as given by RM when John O'Quinn bought it in 2007.
“The Oldest Surviving Car Built by the Ford Motor Company”
Henry Ford’s success was commercial: the creation of a gigantic and immensely profitable enterprise that, on the basis of a simple, reliable, inexpensive product, came to dominate its market.
Ford was one of the first auto industry magnates to recognize the importance of simplicity, economy and high volume; the Model A Ford, introduced in 1903, was the first Ford automobile to embody those principles.
The Model A was the first product of the Ford Motor Company. Its transition from Henry Ford’s concept to a finished product in the hands of customers was balanced on a knife’s edge of cash flow. In early July 1903, Ford’s cash balance was just $223.65. Ford’s credibility with investors was exhausted. There was work-in-process inventory in the Mack Avenue factory but without income there would soon be nothing to pay employees to keep assembling automobiles.
Most successful business stories come down to one single event upon which the survival of the business turns. In the Ford Motor Company’s case it occurred on July 13, 1903 when three customers made the first payments to the company. Only one of those first three Model A Fords has survived, with only four owners since it left Detroit, the 1903 Ford Model A Tonneau no. 30 that was sold to Herbert L. McNary of Britt, Iowa on July 13, 1903.
It took several years and several false starts for Henry Ford’s vision of his automobile business to take shape. After a falling out with the investors in his first enterprise, he turned to match racing in a partnership with Tom Cooper. Ford and Cooper together built the famous 999 and Arrow racers in which the daring Barney Oldfield made the transition from bicycles to automobiles.
In mid-1902 Ford and Alexander Malcomson, a prosperous Detroit coal merchant, formed the Ford & Malcomson Company with the object of producing automobiles in quantity. In addition to capital, Malcomson contributed the services of an associate, James Couzens, to keep an eye on Ford’s business operations. More importantly, Couzens kept the mercurial Ford, who insisted upon tinkering with his automobile’s design and construction, directed toward the company’s goal and lent management credibility to the enterprise.
One of the lessons Henry Ford had learned in his earlier enterprises was that a company needed to be ready to deliver when it announced its new products. Having product ready to satisfy the earliest, most enthusiastic and least price-sensitive customers was essential. Ford and Couzens set about finding suppliers who would build the major components of Ford’s design. It was a formidable task. Reliable suppliers had plenty of potential customers and Ford had the reputation of a gifted and creative technician but a difficult and erratic business associate.
Eventually Couzens and Ford managed to place orders for bodies with the C.R. Wilson Carriage Company ($68 each), for wheels with the W.K. Pruden Wheel Company ($26 per set) and for tires with the Hartford Rubber Company ($40 a set.) Most importantly, they somehow convinced the Dodge brothers, among the elite of Detroit’s manufacturers, to sign on to supply Ford’s chassis and running gear ($250 each). Further investors joined Ford and Malcomson as the enterprise expanded and their presence led to the formation of the Ford Motor Company on June 16, 1903.
The first Ford Motor Company product was called, not surprisingly, the Model A. It was powered by an opposed 2-cylinder engine that displaced 100 cubic inches and was stated to develop eight horsepower. Built on a wheelbase of only 72 inches, it weighed roughly 1,250 pounds depending upon the body fitted. Its light weight made the most of the engine’s eight horsepower and, importantly, an ordinary man could cover more ground in a day with a Model A Ford than with a horse and buggy. More importantly, the Ford didn’t need to be fed on days it wasn’t being used or have its stall mucked out, either!
Ford filled his manufacturing pipeline with product in early 1903, making more than a few running changes in the Model As design along the way, often as a result of the Dodges’ insistence. Yet while cash was going out to pay vendors and employees, shipments hadn’t started and no income was coming in to replenish the company’s coffers.
Even the deep pockets of Alexander Malcomson and the other investors couldn’t keep the Ford Motor Company’s head above water without sales of finished product. By mid-July, payments to suppliers and employees had whittled Ford’s bank balance to practically nothing. Henry Ford and James Couzens had bet the company on having product ready and customers signed up at exactly the moment the cash ran out. That day was Monday, July 13, 1903 when the first three orders were received by the Ford Motor Company for Model A Fords.
Dr. E. Pfennig sent his full payment of $850 ($750 for the Model A Ford and $100 for the tonneau body); Indiana Automobile Company sent a $300 deposit; and Herbert L. McNary sent a $170 deposit against an $880 order for a Model A with Tonneau and $30 of Ford options.
Those three buyers’ $1,320 kept the Ford Motor Company in business. They were the core of a commercial snowball that began rolling that day. In the next fifteen months 1,700 Model A Fords would roll out of the Mack Avenue plant. It was the start of the Ford success that would change the history of the automobile, and with it the history and makeup of our world more comprehensively and quickly than any single invention before or since.
Ford Motor Company, no doubt with Henry Ford and James Couzens physically lending a hand, loaded up those three cars. There was, apparently, no sequence to the numbers of the cars on the Mack Avenue plant floor. Dr. Pfennig got #11 Indiana Automobile got #9 and Mr. McNary got #30.
The details are documented in the original Ford Motor Company ledger, still in the possession of The Henry Ford Museum and endorsed in a December 28, 1954 letter from Henry E. Edmunds, Manager of Ford’s Archive Department.
The other two Ford Model As shipped that day have been lost. Herbert L. McNary’s is the only survivor. It is arguably one of the most important cars in the commercial history of the automobile industry. Without its buyer’s contribution to Ford’s bank account, the real money that replenished the Ford Motor Company’s account when its cash balance was perilously low, the Ford Motor Company might very well not have seen August of 1903 except in the hands of receivers. There might never have been a Ford Model C, a Model K, a Model R or a Model T.
Like the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings in an Amazon rainforest, the 1903 Ford Model A that Herbert L. McNary bought on July 13, 1903 is the basis of the success and survival of the Ford Motor Company. It is almost unimaginable serendipity that it survives today.
Mr. Herbert L. McNary was a butter maker at a creamery in Britt, Iowa. He and his family owned this Ford for about fifty years until, after three years’ negotiations, it was acquired by a pioneering auto collector, Harry E. Burd of Waterloo, Iowa for the substantial sum of $400. Burd had it restored by Lloyd Sievers.
Burd knew he had one of the earliest Fords built, but it was sometime after he acquired the McNary Model A that he noticed an article in Life magazine’s May 25, 1953 issue at the time of Ford’s Fiftieth Anniversary. The article showed a book of check stubs indicating the deposit of Herbert L. McNary and prompted Burd to inquire about the McNary car’s history to the Ford Motor Company. Their in-house archivist, Henry E. Edmunds, replied on December 28, 1954 “… you have every reason to be proud of owning one of the earliest Fords sold... it was the third one actually sold by the Company.” This original significant and detailed letter on file, and accompanies the car in its sale.
In 1961, Burd sold McNary’s Ford Model A to a Swiss Ford dealer. It remained in Europe, displayed at Ford’s European headquarters in Cologne and in other locations, until the present owner – only its fourth owner from new – acquired it in 2001.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of 1903 Ford Model A Tonneau no. 30.
As might be expected, the oldest surviving Ford comes with extensive documentation. There are copies of the original ledgers and checkbooks from the Ford Motor Company kept in James Couzens’ own hand. Copied pages from the town of Britt, Iowa’s 1978 centennial history book recount the story of the Britt Creamery and H.L. McNary’s 1903 Ford. A typewritten biography of Harry E. Burd describes his car collecting history with particular mention of the Model A Ford and a letter from Ford Europe describes its 12 years on display in the Cologne headquarters. There is a dating certificate from The Veteran Car Club of Great Britain as well as correspondence from the Science Museum in London. Finally, there is a copy of the Life Magazine article from May 25, 1953.
The Ford’s condition is exemplary: it has performed flawlessly on numerous tours including the world famous London to Brighton Veteran Car Run in 2003, the year of the car’s centenary, and it also received a special invitation to attend Ford UK’s official centenary celebrations that same year. The engine has recently been the subject of a complete, professional rebuild and the gentleman owner reports the Ford also retains all of its original early features including the extremely rare Kingston carburetor and the original coil box stamped with the car number 30.
No automobile manufacturer has had anywhere close to the impact of the Ford Motor Company. 1903 Ford Model A Tonneau no. 30 is one of three Fords sold on the first day the Ford Motor Company recorded orders. It is the only survivor of the three, has had only four owners in the nearly 104 years since it was built, and has been carefully maintained and restored. Its history and provenance are impeccable.
Without Herbert L. McNary’s $170 check on July 13, 1903 for this 1903 Ford Model A Tonneau #30, we might be driving Popes, or Flanders, or Maxwells; we might talk of “Hartford” or “Tarrytown” in the same way we now speak of “Detroit”.
It is not often that a truly seminal automobile is available to collectors. This is such an opportunity.
Addendum
Please note that as The Ford Motor Company did not appear to build cars in a numerical order and since a few cars might have been manufactured simultaneously, it is appropriate in this case to make clear that this particular example is defined “oldest” by reference to the original Ford Motor Company sales ledger.
This car and subject has been discussed before. From this thread: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/80257/89757.html?1240944509 we learn that car #30 was among the first four Ford cars being paid for in full at july 13, 1903(thanks to Kim Dobbins) #30 was far from being the first one shipped though.
From this thread: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/80257/89409.html?1240645269 we learn that the same car was sold in 2007 to John Quinn, a lawyer in Houston,TX $630,000. Some risk for a loss if RM auctoins $300,000 to $500,000 estimate turns out to be correct.
" In early July 1903, Ford’s cash balance was just $223.65. "
Henry and I have a LOT in common ....
Interesting to note that 109 years later,
the cash balance of the company on that day that made my truck I drive today, would not be enough to fill its' diesel fuel tanks ....
Thank you Henry for a rich history and a great truck I use everyday in my business ...
Jim