I received an email and am posting on his behalf.
I am working with the America on Wheels transportation museum in Allentown, PA and we recently received a very original Model T coupe for display in our upcoming "Restoration Learning Center" exhibit. The car is in unrestored, barn-fresh condition and will act as our example to show people a "before" car and raise the questions about restoring vs. preserving a car.
Anyway, I'm not sure of the year of this car, though I think it is a bit later (23 or up?) as it's not a turtle back body, and has the integrated trunk. This particular car has been modified with a small pickup bed in place of a trunk lid. It extends a bit beyond the rear body and appears to be period correct from what we can see from the hardware. It looked a little too well thought out to be home made, but I could not seem to find any information on it as an aftermarket accessory.
Is this something you'd be familiar with? We would love to display the car with a bit of period advertising for the pickup bed, which would help visitors to see how learning a car's back story is all part of the process of restoration. If you have any thoughts about the origins of the bed, I'd love to hear more. I can send photos if you'd like to see any. Many thanks for your time and consideration.
I greatly appreciate any input you may have.
Kindest Regards,
Geoff Isabelle
Its a homebuilt
Those folks were pretty darned skilled with their hands, and could do much with little. From my experiences, having seen some of these, I would say it was homemade, they probably used the irons off an old wagon.
What a great "closed cab" pick up ! Maybe I should've done that to my wife's '25 Coupe ?
Welcome to the affliction,were always here to help with the model T things.
I would say home made. The wood joints would have been tungue & grove or have a metal strap over them. The hardware looks like blacksmith work or farmer in his barn.
This would also be great to show the ingenuity
of the people of that period to create something more use full to there personal every day needs.
Great idea to have that kind of display, best of luck in your venture
Bob
Geoff -- It's a 1924-25 Coupe that has been converted to a pickup. It happened a lot "back in the day," and that car is a great example of how Model T's were modified to extend their usefulness. Oftentimes folks moved up to a newer Model A for the family car and converted their old T to a pickup for use on the farm or for deliveries around town. Many Touring Cars were converted to pickups by removing the back half of the body and adding a wooden pickup bed.
Also, during WW-II when gas was rationed, pickups were allotted more gas than cars, so a lot of those conversions occurred then.
Some time around the Model A era there was one maybe more companies that made a steel box that you could put into a coupe or roadster and make it into a pickup. The steel box type was made to fit different car makers models up to maybe the early 50's
The one in the photo above looks to be a nice home made job.
You've heard of the Doctor's Coupe. That's the Market Coupe or Grocery Coupe as we call them down here. I don't think it qualifies as a pickup. Perhaps that's the teacup.
My Granddad did the same thing with his 27 coupe. After suffering a vicious collision squarely in the middle of the decklid/trunk area, he removed the panel below the decklid and the decklid, itself, except for about the top six inches. Then, he made a wooden pickup box to go in the rear. It would have made the car's restoration much easier it the modification hadn't been made, and oh, we had to straighten the trunk floor and rear body stringer. they were pushed in so much, it looks like he backed into a 12" diameter tree or telephone pole.
Chev and Terraplane offered coupe pickups from the factory. Chev had them from 36-42.
The hardware on that pickup conversion likely came from an old horse drawn wagon. It could have been factory made or made by a local blacksmith. Either way it is interesting and fun.
Got this email from Geoff today.
Thanks so very much for all of your input! Thanks to everyone. It would make sense that the irons were borrowed, since they look a little too well engineered to be homemade (with all due respect to the builder, of course!). This is all really helpful for our display and it all adds to the great story of this particular T.
Many thanks,
Geoff