Firestone wheels?
What's the round black thing in the windshield?
What is Grandma saying from the Kitchen door?
Yes those are Firestone wood fellow demountable wheels.
Grandma, "Get me a bag of Martha White flour and don't forget my can of snuff."
"Y'all come back now, ya hear?"
Round dark spot? My first impression is that it was something behind and to the right of the car.
Danial;
I think your right.
I'm confused. Does the large carriage bolt just ahead of the rear door make it a '15, or'16? I have been told both.
Considering it is a female driver "round black thing in the windshield" must be a make-up mirror
Be_Zero_Be
Come on you guys. It's easy to tell the round black thing is their satellite dish.
Jeff, the black rims on the headlamps and side lamps means it's likely 1916 production, made from august 1915 to july 1916. The carriage bolt ahead of the rear door came in april of 1915 according to Hap in this thread: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/80257/116286.html so all the bolt says is the body isn't early 1915 production.
Notice how shiny the paint still is, must be fairly new at the time.
Another clue to the time period is the girls' long hair. By the mid twenties they were wearing bobs.
That round black thing is a "portable hole."
They are really handy when you need to reach through a wall or into a safe, and are great fun to put on the ground in front of an unsuspecting pedestrian!
: ^ )
Keith
Because there were no “federal regulations” that cars had to comply with back then, there is not a nice clear cut this is a 1915 and this is a 1916. I.e. there is no tag on the door stating the car is a model year xxx and complies with applicable Federal regulations etc.
In addition to that, Ford made running changes introducing new designed parts when it made sense for him to do so. If he could save 1/100 of a cent why wait until the “model year change” to implement the change? Additionally with the numerous branch assembly plants that cropped up in abundance as a result of the moving conveyor line and success of the Model T – 10 cars assembled the same day at 10 different locations could be and often were a little different from each other.
In the case of the 1915 model year at: http://mtfca.com/encyclo/1915.htm Bruce chose the following as the model year: MODEL YEAR DATES: January 1915 (open cars) to August 1915. And at http://mtfca.com/encyclo/1916.htm he has the 1916 MODEL YEAR DATES: August 1, 1915 to July 31, 1916. Notice there is no attempt to say a specific day – but the 1915 is considered ending and the 1916 is considered beginning during the same 31 day month of Aug. [side note: Bruce also clarifies that the 1914 style cars with the flat wood dash that were still being manufactured at the Branch Plants for several additional months during early 1915 would be considered 1914 models while at the same time Highland Park had begun producing the metal cowl 1915 models .
If we use the Aug 1915 date as the end of the 1915 model year you can see that several items that are considered typical for a 1916 model year were implemented prior to Aug or after Aug.
You could still have either a bulb or magneto horn – ref:
From: http://mtfca.com/encyclo/doc15.htm we find the following references – note the dates were often when a change was specified it could take a little while before it was implemented and then there would still be overlap when both styles were used:
JUN 19, 1915 Acc. 575, Box 19, Ford Archives
Headlight door. Change from brass to black steel specified.
OCT 5, 1915 Record of change, Ford Archives
Transmission cover material specified to be cast iron instead of aluminum. The actual production of iron covers apparently did not begin until early 1916.
Note also that the aluminum covers were also used with a lot of overlap.
OCT 16, 1915 Acc. 575, Box 19, Ford Archives
Electric horns specified for all 1916 cars. Notes that 10,000 electric horns were used in 1915 but the wording is such that there may have been more.
That would imply to me that a Sep 1915 could still have a bulb horn. That is also supported by http://mtfca.com/encyclo/1915_ford.htm where they examine a Sep 1915 touring that apparently came with a bulb horn. Also that one still had the brass trim.
So much more still to discover – thank you all for helping us capture more and more of the puzzle pieces.
Respectfully submitted,
Hap l9l5 cut off
"Portable hole" sounds like a spell from my old D&D playing days back in high school, Keith..
Hap - always love your most informative posts. Thanks.
Note that the 1,000,000 T having the serial number stamped on the motor has an aluminum hogshead. This would be Dec. 10, 1915, about 28 cars after mine!
The AUSTRALIAN Road & Traffic Authority are always referring to black spots on their hi-ways. These could be the ones left over from way back when ''T's were having accidents at the same places.