MTFCA Forum

https://www.loc.gov/item/2014701762/

Nice find that photo, its hard to tell to which unit it belonged.
In the beginning of WW1 there were a lot of volunteer units active, there were several different Red Cross units, the AFS, and a plethora of others moving around behind the front.
All had to be registered with the French authorities, in your picture it is very hard to discern the registration numbers, there should be two ; one the French road registration a number with five or six numbers, and second the registration of the ambulance and its number : SS(something) for which unit it belongs to and a numberfor which car it is.
The car in your picture seems to have SSA painted on the rear upper corner of the side, but it is not very clear, so i can not say for sure what unit it belonged to.
On the car in the below picture you can see the two numbers clearly, the french registration and the unit registration, which is not yet complete as the car is brand new and has not been delivered to its final unit yet.
This particular car belonged to the AFS (American Field Service) hence the SSU registration.

Here a restored one at the 100 year model T concentration in Sedan France June 2008.

I don't know where it is now.

Andre
Belgium

I knew i guy who tied his t down round the frame like that in the last picture. He had a two piece frame after that. Going around the frame like that probably not a good idea. Let her float on the springs instead.

A few more early WWI T ambulances:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x85ohn4lztsz4 ... 0.pdf?dl=0


https://www.dropbox.com/s/b6cahr68urma3 ... 4.pdf?dl=0

Here is Walt Disney during WWI. Notice the cartoon character on the canvas.

I got no skin in this, but I do think there were hard tops, and I do think there were 'conestoga wagon' top versions.

For what it is worth, here is the one at The Walt Disney Family Museum

Shen, I agree with letting the car ride free in its suspension. In their defence, it looks like they were threading all the available length of a 9 meter strap around anything they could see before they hooked up the ratchet.

Allan from down under.

There is quite good detail if you click on the Library of Congress link and select TIFF as the file format.

That last picture is a lot clearer and provides us with more info !
It is a very early car, probably from 1915, the were shipped to France as bare chassis, Kellner, a coachbuilder from Paris, built the ambulance bodies.
Rob's picture from the 'Outlook' shows the very first batch of 15 ambulances, that were assembled in the open air on the grounds of the American Hospital of the American Ambulance Field Service at the former Lycee Pasteur on the outskirts of Paris

SSAA1 means it belongs to the 'Service Sanitaire' which is French for Medical Service and then AA1, AA for American Ambulance Service and the 1 makes it the first unit.
The name of the American Ambulance Service was later changed to the American Field Service as they started to provide more services than just driving ambulances.
Around that time there were so many different organisations active in the ambulance and tranport services to all of the alied armies that the registration was changed to a sort of code system wherein the AFS (formerly American Ambulance Service) was given the code letter U, so in later photo's you'll often find a SSU painted on the cars followed by a number denoting the unit to which that car belonged.
Nice find ! the car in the photograph was probably shipped back to the U.S. to help in fundraising for the AFS, that organisation was very active in that field and raised a lot more money than they would ever need, after the war the funds were used to "Strengthen the Friendship between France and the United States" through student exchanges among other things.
The AFS remains very active up to the present day, they have a great website that also gives a lot of info on the history of the AFS, not only in WW1 and WW2, but on their long history of trying to bring peoples of different nations together .
Have look and google "AFS history", you'll be surprised...

While discussing ambulances of WW1;
Only one original AFS ambulance remains, it resides in the 'Friends of France Museum' in the Chateau de Blérancourt in France.
The reason is that the AFS donated all their ambulances that were still operable to local communities that were ravaged by the war, as the ambulances were in great demand because of the tremendous amount of unexploded munitions that made casualties on a daily basis, only one was kept to be preserved in the museum.
All others are 'recreations' , one of the best was done by George King III of North Franklin, who went to France to measure and study the one in the museum.
Here is a picture of the one and only original car:

Here's some footage of George King in appropriate attire touring Paris in the rain and at the end while speaking to the French President in Paris when he toured France with his ambulance to comemmorate WW1 in 2014 :

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7jhq8e_mNK8

And here is a better link direct to the AFS archives and Virtual Museum , you'll find some nice rabbit holes there

https://www.the-afs-archive.org/

Thank you Leo and all who posted. An incredible slice of history and FMC combined.

Were any of these ambulances wide track?

Au Bois de Boulogne, voici un défilé de confortables voitures appartenant aux ambulances américaines

https://bibliotheques-specialisees.pari ... 0001875437

1914 - Une voiture ambulance Ford devant le lycée Pasteur de Neuilly-sur-Seine : [photographie de presse] / Agence Meurisse

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... rk=21459;2

Here's a few photos from 1915 that Luxford sent to me. The first one is an ambulance repair vehicle.

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... rk=21459;2#


https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... rk=21459;2#

John E. your pictures are from the same series about one of the early AFS units, the 'wide track' is the maintenance car that belonged to the unit, it is the same car as the one with the awning and the one in your second to last picture.
The very first picture of the wrecked T in this thread is a car that belonged to this same unit.
Also visible in this series of pictures are several trucks that were used by the AFS to haul supplies, parts and occasional 'walking' patients from field hospitals to bigger hospitals and further behind the lines.

There's a bit of ambulance footage in these clips:

https://youtu.be/L89rRmixRPc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLRaop8LtBU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yyy_QvKyE2s

Here is one I haven't seen before. It is a British Red Cross Society Truck.

John E. Guitar wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 09, 2021 5:04 pm

Were any of these ambulances wide track?

Au Bois de Boulogne, voici un défilé de confortables voitures appartenant aux ambulances américaines

https://bibliotheques-specialisees.pari ... 0001875437


Ambulance detail.png

ark__73873_pf0001875437_v0001.jpg

These short bodied cars. like Walt Disney's were not ambulances, they were delivery cars