MTFCA Forum

Looks like a 1910 or so Schacht.

So, do you suppose the photographer was as impeccable dressed, and remained as mud free, as the driver?

I can't even imagine going out in that mud dressed like that! He should have worn overalls and packed the suit in a suitcase to change when he reached his destination. He might need to get out get help from a horse!

Norm, it wasn't muddy when he left home!

I dunno where the crank is on that thing, but he's gonna get dirty if he stalls it!

The crank is probably on the side, I wonder if those are Michelin Mudders ?

Perhaps he only has the shirt and jacket on so he can get out without getting his pants & shoes muddy

From the look of the trees this looks like an early spring trip.
The depth of the ruts makes it look like the ground might be frozen underneath with a bit of mud on top of that frost.
He probably left on the frost in the morning with a much heavier coat over his suit and no mud on the road.

Love the Schacht!
Perry K's three.
Edsel Ford's customized '15 touring on his Chicago to San Francisco trip!
A 1912 open roadster. Notice the curved rear fenders. These are the ones that predated the 1915's "first" curved rear fenders!
An early '17 runabout. While many of the details, wheels, oil side-lamps, were available for a few more years? The windshield has the evenly spaced hinges that were used only 1915 into mid '17.
Wonderful photos all!

Perry, thats some real mud ! Must have been a real trick pushing those horses out with the runabout!

Its hard to realize that paved roads are a phenomena of the last 100 years. Even the state highways in my area were gravel until WWII or later. Our Model T's were designed for such conditions which makes me chuckle when I hear guys talk who are afraid to take their cars on a gravel or dirt road.
Me, I prefer to avoid mud because I hate the extra clean-up. That said, good gravel can make a great Model T road.

Gentlemen:
some of the best "MUD" images I have seen were in a Dodge Brothers factory film titled "Oil Field Dodge" ...this can be seen on Utube … a real kick to see … always an optimist Gene French

Someone asked where the crank is on the Schacht. It hangs out the rear of the car. They're a 2 cylinder, apposed, friction drive.

Some of my relations still live along an original section of one lane concrete highway in rural central Illinois. I made sure that I showed this to my kids as a history lesson when they were still in school.

The result of not returning under your own power.

Why would anyone feed a horse prunes and then hook it to the front of a car to pull it!

wayne sheldon wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 28, 2020 6:58 pm

Edsel Ford's customized '15 touring on his Chicago to San Francisco trip!

I'm not sure which I like more on this car, the wire wheels or the vent in the cowl...

Any more info on it?

If I recall correctly, Edsel traveled to San Francisco in 1915 to atend the Pan American Expedtion. I seem to recall that in 2015 a couple of adventurous folks retraced the trip.
There should be an article in either the Vintage Ford or Model T Times with photos of both trips. Also photos of Edsel's trip were posted here on the forum, probably in 2015 also. Folks better at searching than me should be able to find and post the link. I will check if I have a copy of the magazine article.

It probably was about five years ago, quite a few people on this and other forums shared a lot of information about that trip! Edsel and a few of his wealthy friends in two other cars made the trip together. One of the other two cars was a Stutz (I believe a Bulldog Touring?), the other marque escapes me at the moment. Probably hundreds of photos were taken, and several "Memory Albums" were made and given to the participants. At least a couple of the albums are known to survive.

The wire wheels on Edsel's T have always intrigued me. While I am not actually opposed to the practice, I have never cared for so many people in the antique automobile hobby putting wire wheels on model T's built before 1926. Yes, it was done back in the days. But it was NOT done very often. I seriously believe that more pre '25 model Ts today have wire wheels on them than ever did during the model T's heyday. That is especially true for brass era model Ts. Over the now many years that I enjoy studying original era photographs, I have probably seen less than twenty original era photographs of different brass era model Ts with wire wheels on them. And only slightly more than that of black era Ts. This ONE car, is THE reason given by many people for using wire wheels on their brass era T. I have seen various pictures of THIS car nearly a hundred different times and places. And this one picture, probably about thirty different places by now (the number keeps going up because the photo keeps showing up!). While a fantastic example of an era customized model T, this one car does not represent what MOST model Ts were like back then.

Beyond all that, is another interesting fact. If one can find and see a bunch of photos of the entire trip? Something odd happened. The car left Michigan all nice and clean and shiny with a full set of wire wheels. Several photographs taken en-route exist showing the car with apparently two wires and two wooden spoke wheels on it! And at least one photo exists where it had one wooden spoke wheel showing, and likely three wires still. It arrived in San Francisco apparently with four wooden spoke wheels. Disclaimer, I can't say for certain it arrived that way, but I have read that it did, and seen a couple pictures of it after it was cleaned up, clearly with four wooden wheels. While there is a record of Ford dealerships servicing the car en-route, and one questionable mention of replacing one wheel, nobody seems to really know the whens whys or wheres of the wheels being changed. They were not changed all at once.
People today think that wooden spoke wheels were an archaic technology used in the early days of the automobile because people did not know better. But the reality is that wooden spoke wheels were a tried and true technology that was right for its era. And frankly except that the cost today would be so high compared with the automation building of solid steel, aluminum, and even exotic metal wheels, wooden spoke wheels still are not a weak or bad technology.
A part of the proof of that, is that these wire wheels did not work out all that well for this trip. For whatever reason.