Ouch!

[Dollisdad]

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[jiminbartow]

In that first picture the crumpled T is beside some railroad tracks. It was hit by a train and whoever was in the car was almost certainly killed unless they saw the train coming and were able to escape the car in time.

IMG_8914.jpeg (136.3 KiB) Viewed 4984 times

[Norman Kling]

Number 9 looks like the Wawona Tunnel tree in Yosemite Mariposa grove. It is now a fallen log. Another "Ouch". We drove through the tree 3 times. Once when I was 9 years old in a '36 Ford, another about 1962 in a Model A and again around 1970 in a '48 Cadillac.
It's a wonder the tree lasted as long as it did because of it's size and a weakened base.
Norm

[DanTreace]

That train wreck is an 1909 runabout, butterfly rear fender brackets, pressed rear axle pumpkin, running boards with the interrupted strips. So sad.
.

[Rich P. Bingham]

That impressive coach body on #6 doubtless began its career behind flesh and blood horsepower ! I wish there were more views of it. Love to see the front end treatment. That’s not a “stock” Ford hood ! Wonder what became of it ? Is it on a 1915 chassis ?

[Allan]

there was a similar car to number 6 in Lancaster CA. It was referred to as an opera coupe. It was a 20's model if I recall correctly. Quite different quality to the usual Ford build.

Allan from down under.

[pete eastwood]

very early 1909 with the front fenders that are square across the front,
and covered wood running boards with the screwed on brass trim.

09 t early forum pic.jpeg (95.15 KiB) Viewed 4752 times

[Art M]

The giant sequoia tree, that cars drove through, fell in the winter of 1968/69. For a short time after that, visitors were allowed to climb on the trunk. My late brother and i spent about 15 minutes on the base of the trunk in July, 1970. We were above ground level by about 20 feet as I recall. Unfortunately, we never took pictures.

Art Mirtes

[jiminbartow]

I’d sure love to have this one (number 6). Love the coach work. Is it a T? If so, was it a special order, an after market body kit, or a custom built job? Would it have been steel or wood? If I had to guess, I would say the body was possibly built by a horse drawn master coach builder put out of business by the advent of the automobile. Must be 8’ tall. Beautiful!

Looks like the windshield, which is angled open, has a vertical center divider.

[RajoRacer]

Quite sure it started out it's life as an early Centerdoor - note the bail door handle.

[Rich P. Bingham]

Steve, it certainly is a center door, but I don’t think Ford had anything to do with that body ! It’s custom coachwork for sure, and mighty interesting ! Wouldn’t it be great to see more of it ??

[RajoRacer]

Agreed - sure is some fancy coachwork - wonder if it is European ? Absent is the customary oval rear window !

[ForestAcres]

There is a video of Henry Ford giving John Burroughs a ride in 1916 in a Model T coupe with a very unusual body. This is a still from that video. Note the doors opening at the rear, and the unusual cowl. So it is not too much of a stretch to think there may have been an early version of a sedan?

[image][/image]

[ForestAcres]

This is a link to to the actual video. The car shows up 6 sec into the video

https://www.dvarchive.com/920-1446/Henr ... -1916.html

[Wayne Sheldon]

That is a very interesting T for certain! I hope someone has the answer and that it can be found and shared. Ford built a few prototype center-doors and couplets in 1914, and possibly earlier. Numerous photos were taken of a few of those, and are quite interesting to study! How many prototypes were built apparently is not known. However there were at least two center-door sedans in mid 1914. Neither one was this car.
Studying a number of photos taken by the experimental group reveals about a half dozen variations, all looking very similar, but with differing lamps, hoods, and fenders. A couple different fenders styles varied greatly, with fancy curves front and rear. Others were similar to what the 1915 production got. A few era factory photos show two of the cars, one up close, the other in the background. Years ago, I saw a photo that had two cars, fairly close together, one just a little behind the other. (Been a more than a decade since I have seen that one?)
Researchers much better than I have speculated that the experimental department built two center-door sedans, then played around with various other parts of the cars resulting in so many variations in the photos.
The couplets were done similarly. Some years ago, I saw one photo of two prototype couplets. One had the doors opening at the front. The other the doors opened at the rear. The "still" posted by David J may have been one of those cars. Note the gas headlamps on that couplet. Most of the factory prototypes on both the center-door and couplet cars had gas headlamps.

I might wonder if this particular custom (?) center-door sedan might have been a Ford factory experimental? However, I would doubt it myself. Someone there could have built one special for their own family? Again, I would expect to have seen more photos of such a thing if that were done there. I think likely just another albeit extra nice special done somehow for some individual.
One other thing does occur to me. That rear "trunk" looks a lot like the "bustle back" battery box from an electric automobile? Clearly the chassis is not electric, and does appear to be typical model T.
I can't help but think that maybe someone had bought a grand electric sedan a few years earlier, and loved the style. However, as time crept forward, and gasoline automobiles became easier and more reliable, they wanted better speed and range? So had the body they liked so well mounted on a model T chassis.
Just an idea.

One other thing I noticed on this car? The wheels. Usually when I see lightly colored wheels on model Ts and often other cars of the 1910s, I attribute that to the dusty and muddy roads of the day. We know that most wheels of the time, especially on model Ts, were not lightly colored in those days. But sometimes, they were repainted in light colors. Anyhow, it caught my eye. There are arrow point pin stripes on the wheel spokes. If the wheels were dust covered? The pin stripes would have been covered as well. So it appears that this unusual car also had light colored wheels as well, with pin stripes.

[ForestAcres]

I think Wayne S may have a good possible explanation in that it was an electric car body that was transferred to a Model T chassis. One thing I noticed in the photo is that the hood top and sides are not standard Model T. The hood looks like it slants upward from the radiator to the body much more than a regular Model T, and the sides have unique louvers. Below is a photo of a 1913 Baker Electric, and notice that the hood of that car actually slants up to join the body. So if adapting an existing electric car to a Model T chassis, that might have been the solution to mating a specially fabricated hood to the higher location of the electric cars body. And the "trunk" does indeed look very much like the battery compartment for an electric car of that era.

Below is a photo of a 1913 Baker electric.

[image][/image]

[OilyBill]

Well, it WAS possible to order a bare chassis. The woman may have known a coachbuilder, or been related to one, and they told her to just order a bare chassis, and they would build her a body for it. (Father or brother who worked in the carriage trade, perhaps) This might have been their last carriage body they built, since replacing horses was well on the way by this year.

I still remember when "Mark Automotive" put out their catalogs in the 1970's, and had a section of remaining carriage parts, fittings, and decorations, most of which they said dated from the 1890's to 1910 or so. They also sold Ford Model T and Model A parts, and that is how I saw their catalog, when I first got a Model A.

(In the book "Excuse My Dust" about life in a small New York State rural town, the author reports on conditions at the local livery stable, from the proprietor having full stalls all the time, to being down to just a few horses in stalls near the end, and liquidating his coaches and wagons that he had previously rented out, and the time table was only 5-6 years, probably from 1905 to 1910. It is an EXCELLENT book, and the author, who was a lawyer in the town, recounts a LOT of interesting stories about early motoring, and it's effect on the town. For one thing, the residents fought very hard to keep the main road out of town, and later regretted it, as they were bypassed, and they never recovered economically from that. Being a lawyer, he knew most of the important residents of the town, and many of the simple people as well, and his love and affection for his little town are quite evident on every page. He recounts an event similar to the first picture in this series, where a farmer and his team were killed by a train at a crossing. This apparently was a quite common occurrence. He also recounts the many characters that lived in his town, and some of the town drama that arose as well. It's a book well worth reading, as the author was a firm auto enthusiast, and the whole book is written from that standpoint. I imagine nearly EVERY community in the U.S. went through the same growing pains and changes, but most were probably not as well documented as they are in that book.
The town has preserved his lawyers office, and you can stop and visit it.

[RajoRacer]

That "fancy" hood & radiator shell were available in some of the era parts catalogs of the day - jazz up your Ford.

[George House]

I’m more intrigued by photo # 4. Delivery of 8 Fords to NE in late 1913. So the factory installed all side lamps
(no E&J) and all headlamps, carbide generators, fenders and windshields were boxed up somewhere on the train ? Then were top sockets and bows an accessory left to the dealership ??

[Rich P. Bingham]

George, I, too, wonder how the cars were shipped in those early days. I wonder how “standard” was the procedure for shipping Fords by rail within the continental USA as a “some assembly required” by dealers proposition ? It doesn’t seem logical fhe cars would have had side lamps fitted at the factory when all else was crated separately. Maybe ?!?
The car on the far left is fitted with fenders while the other seven are not. What a fine picture for speculating !

[Luxford]

Photo's exist of numerous versions of shipping by rail. from complete cars less wheels, to chassis with and with out bodies, complete cars driven into box cars. It may be due to amount ordered or availability at factory at time of shipping, costs or some other reason.
Same goes for overseas, some fully boxed some disassembled, others completely disassembled and individually wrapped in paper or other material some deck cargo complete and ready to drive away from dock.

[OilyBill]

That LAST car. It's hard to imagine how they got it in or out, without scratching it up. I would have thought they would have loaded them fore and aft, and it would have been a LOT easier to extract them, even with one end high up in the air.

[George House]

Good grief ! That New and Improved coupe looks dangerous !! How did they get it up there and how can they lift the front axle w/o scratching and denting the panel below the trunk lid ? Let’s have some discussion on this event of coupe removal. It could be that an intact T is front and aft of this boxcar and it appears the coupe is facing the sliding door…..

[jiminbartow]

There appears to be a block of wood bolted to the wall struts of the boxcar that the rear axle ends fit into, securely holding the rear end up at an angle. I assume the rear end would have been jacked up with a special jack made for the purpose and the rear axles secured and the jack removed.

Under the closest coupe I can see the left end of the front axle with the front end of the T facing the side of the closest T. Apparently, the first T’s were leaned against the end walls of the boxcar while the T’s in front of the door were leaned against the sides of the boxcar. With special racks, the boxcars of that time could probably hold as many as 6 Model T’s. Two to each side of the doors and two in front of the doors.

[Daisy Mae]

What boggles the mind is not just the logistics, but the sheer manpower required to prep/load/ship out a days production no matter what the conveyence....but man...at 6 T's per box car, that's a LOT of boxcars!!!