MTFCA Forum

After watching the video of Trent Bogess that Rob was kind enough to share and reading Carl Pate's book this week I was thinking of a display I would love to see. The development of the Ford engine up to the Model T. If we could see a Model A 8hp, Model A 10hp, Model C, etc engines and the improvements Henry made to finally come up with the Model T. They do not have to be complete working engines. Just enough to see the progression and thought behind the improvements and gain in HP, and how the transmission was integrated with the engine.

Great idea !

That would be really neat Dave, but each of those motors is easily $15-20,000. Maybe a graphic art display would be the way to go.

All of those engines are already at Piquette... in cars! Once they reopen, a "Hood Off Day" would be a cool thing!

Seat panels on most Jerry. You guys all do a great job up there. Always different. We are due for a visit.

This is my cousin, Tim Simonson, one of my oldest model T mentors, standing at the birthplace of the Tin Lizzie. This was at least a dozen years ago, and I know they have done tons to interpret that special spot since. One of my favorite pictures. You were there that day, Jerry. Cousin Tim has had a love affair with Lizzie for almost 60 years now, and currently finishing up another special one.

Tim,

I was thinking just a display of the blocks, hopefully with a transmission. There has to be blocks around that are too far gone to be used ever again. You really cannot see them when inside the car unless you take the body off, and I know that is not going to happen. The guys at New London to New Brighton have been great at showing their cars, so I have seen them in a car, but to see them in 3 dimensions outside of a car like the one up in the experimental room would be really neat. Then you can try to put yourself into Henry's head and see the visions that he had to improve them. Maybe Ford can print them out on their 3D printers.

There are plenty of scrap or damaged parts, and cracked blocks, that could be assembled into 3D models that people could touch. They don't have to be assembled from perfect parts.

Dave, there is really no such thing with an alphabet car. These are not one of the 15,000,000 T engines. FoMoCo made roughly 1200 A & AC. 800 C, 1000 F, ......just guessing, you can look up the actual number. If an original broken, damaged, worthless looking block would stick its head up today, it would be painstakingly repaired and rebuilt and a car built around it. Transmissions have been repaired and remade for years now on these animals. That’s another $5-10k. Just not going to happen, IMHO. Recently some NRS engines have popped up, in the $2-5k range. Model B or K, fogedaboutit ! Either of those would be $50-100k easy.
When I was a youngster, the Mack ave building replica housed a bunch of early alphabet chassis with motors. Those are over at greenfield village stored away, but good luck getting those.