Seems to be period and not colorized?

Color certainly makes it seem more real. Whoever colorized it did a good job (assuming it was originally B&W.)

I wonder why they put chains on the front?

Is it possible that that chained wheel is from the back, and where is the front wheel?

More than possible. The front wheel is a quarter-mile down the road.

If that photo was B&W and got colorized, it's the best job I've seen.

What make ? Is that the driver still behind the wheel ? Was the accident caused because chains don't really help that much on icy pavement ? Are those model T headlamps, or just Ford "H" lenses, or neither ?!?

I am not 100% certain if the above picture is a product of the Colorist/Artist Patty Allison, but it could be. She has done some mighty impressive work colorizing black and white photographs. While she DOES have to guess at what the original color of a particular object might have been, she does much research and that has allowed her to become a pretty good guesser.

The following link is to a newspaper article about her.

https://www.pressherald.com/2013/08/05/portland-history-gets-dash-of-color_2013-08-05/


This is one of her works:

There's a lot more where that came from. The artist is Patty Allison from Portland, Maine. Her web site is Imbued with Hues, or here on Facebook.

The "Oregon or bust" guy looks a bit like Kevin Costner.

Will, when slippery, like icy conditions, it's essential to have a good grip on at least one of the steering wheels in addition to the drive wheels, so the wheel with a snow chain was probably the RH front wheel just like it seems - though the speed was still too high..

The first picture above, posted by Tim Rogers, was colorized by Sanna Dullaway. Do a google search on that picture and you can see others that she's done.

https://www.redbubble.com/people/sannadullaway

Also:

https://www.facebook.com/sannadullaway/photos/auto-wreck-in-washington-dc/729366 470468221/

A very nice coloring job. Difficult because you are really coloring what is a light color in the black and white print. The dark parts are metallic silver. By the way there was a full color process in the model T era ... the autochrome. It worked by subtractive color mixing, which is what we now have on phone, tv and computer screens. Tiny dots or lines of red, green and violet blue rather than layers of cyan, magenta and yellow as we have with paper photographs and the old color slides of yesteryear. Take a good strong loupe and look at your phone screen and you’ll see them.

Looks like there is a blanket over the hood and they plowed something with the left running board, the right headlight lens appears to have horizontal bars as well as vertical and is different from the left one.
Do not know what good the 2 jacks out front were going to do.
2 license plates also.

The last photo doesn't look as nice as the rest but still really good. Maybe because of the assembly line getting smaller in the background. Still pretty good though.
The others are about as good as you can get being colorized.

Thanks for the info, Bob. I thought Patty Allison did most of the colorized photos we find on the web. I didn't know about Sanna Dullaway.

Fact is, there were real color photos from the era. The Lumière Autochromes were full-color photos done with dyed potato starch, invented in 1904. Here's the history of the Autochrome, and here's a Google image search for some examples.

I would imagine a icy road, this car hit on driver's side, skidded onto sidewalk, collapsing wood spokes on front wheel..... as far as chains on front wheel ???? maybe to help steering direction in snow or ice ???

My theory; like Bob posted it was hit on the drivers side. Look at the running board splash shield, the imprint of a bumper and the parts of the front undercarriage of the other car are visible. Part of the offending bumper is laying by the tree. As the car was hit and passed across the curb both passenger side wheels were snapped off and the front of the car came to rest on the rear passenger side wheel. I think the jacks are part of an attempt to lift up the car, to no avail, and we are waiting for tow truck.

Michelin Tire sold a safety tire ,,,, suggested only two were needed at left rear and front right.... tread pattern on front wheels differ.... your thoughts ??

I used to own four Autochromes of the Panama-Pacific Exhibition (1915) and two still lifes from 1912. Hated to sell them but I was out of work...

The front passenger fender is folded in and back. This could indicate the vehicle struck an object which took off that complete front wheel and caused a spin. If that is the case, the driver side could have slid backwards. Then the driver side could have come in contact with another object causing the driver side running board to be folded down and forward causing the rear driver door to be sprung open. Traveling backwards would explain why the chained, unspoked rear wheel is in front of the vehicle where it all came to rest. FYI both license plates are 1921. The top plate is DC and the bottom is Maryland.

I agree with Dominic, It looks like it may have hit the tree that is front of it.

What is the item laying at the base of the tree, lower right side of the picture? Does it have anything to do with the circle on the ground by the fence?