MTFCA Forum

The UK Daily mail has a rather interesting article on using model T's to play polo rather than horses. There are some great photos.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... derby.html

I wonder if any of these cars survived over the years, with the hoop and all other equipment intact. Or...if anyone ever recreated one?

Heck Don, I doubt they survived the day!

Hope no one touch the fan with his fingers ...

There is (or was?) at least one, I think it is in the Pacific Northwest area. I do not know if it is an actual survivor or a recreation. I have never seen it in person, but did see a photo of it a few years back (on our old forum!).
There are quite a number of photos of the cars taken way back in the day. Some of them were cleverly staged with the cars blocked in "action" poses, and "players" leaped from the cars as the photo was taken! Always fun to dissect those pictures. There were also a few film shorts (videos in modern parlance) of actual playing of the games. Many years ago, I got to see one such film short (a "News Reel") on the big screen in a theater that was also showing silent era movies.
Neat stuff!

I cringe when I watch all that wonderful old iron being abused that way! However, I need to remind myself that in THOSE days, it was just old junk. I remember that one era photograph that was studied a few years ago, had a 1910 chassis being battered along with later '10s remnants of other cars. Seeing that low-neck radiator being beaten was cruel (to me!). All part of our car's histories.

No different than a 5 year old Kia being abused.

It was just a used car...a common used car.

Not sure of the entire history of it but there has been one in our club since I was a kid anyway.
We had it out in Winter on the lake quite a few years ago now giving test rides and generally just screwing around.

Here’s a video on YouTube of us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfi5h3gUd64

Kevin

Kevin....that is AWESOME!

That's exactly what I was wondering about exisiting. I bet it's the real deal...I have no way of knowing of course.

Here is another link, It has some video and still pics..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubyQ6bQ0-ok

OK, how many Hibbing's are there? I grabbed my phone and watched those clips!
Fun up near the MN North Shore?

Thanks Kevin. That is me in that video along with other members of the Milwaukee Model T Club. Wasnt that rhe year your car sank partly through the ice?

John W. Stoltz of Model T Ranch still plays that game with his T, he's specially modified his car for this. In fact every product he sells is a result of something he's fabricated for that polo car of his.

Here are a few other Auto Polo images that were posted in the past.

I wonder what auto polo was really like? Most of the pictures I've seen have been faked, probably at least due in part to the limitations on cameras at the time. For example, car #4 in the post above clearly has the rear end propped up on a wooden column (you can see it outboard of the frame rail on the driver's side) while the other car had the left rear wheel supported by a jack or something that has been edited out. If you look closely you can see that it wasn't edited out very well.

Jason G and T-Tim E, Those are two of my favorite "staged" auto polo pictures. They have been extensively discussed in years past. Really fun to blow up and study closely. One of the first tip-offs is that none of the wheels are spinning. The film used in those days was fairly slow, a spinning wheel will have the spokes blurred enough that you probably could not even count the spokes. Notice, the fellow flying through the air is slightly blurred, and he isn't moving very fast. He may have been standing on top of the front wheel (speculation), and the other fellow in the other car also poised. Once everything was blocked and ready, the cameraman counted down. The one fellow dove off his wheel, the other rolled out the side, and the photographer squeezed the shutter. In a real action shot, at least one of those airborne wheels would be spinning. A little cut and paste (literally), and blocks or jacks disappear.
Fun stuff on so many levels!

The driver in the car on the right almost looks like he's smiling....enjoying the experience.

I doubt he'd be doing that if he was about to eat dirt under a moving car.