Finally got some direction

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[John kuehn]

Interesting photos! What’s on the back of the TT truck. Load of ??

[Scott_Conger]

Looks like the Willard battery guy had a terrible day...looking closely you see that the tow truck/service vehicle in the background has just pulled it up onto the road via a very long rope and snatch-block hidden off camera to the left.

[George House]

All Right !! The elusive CDF. (Curved dash Ford) 7th picture from the top - bakery delivery. Judging by the RHD, its probably “over the pond”. Thanks again Tom

[kmatt2]

The 1925-27 closed cab TT with a large load , looks like that load may be sugar beets. I like the picture of the early 1926 coupe, with no headlight tie bar, and the man holding the small dog in front of it. That coupe has 30 x 3.5 demountable wheels and looks like it may be painted in Ford high gloss black paint.

[Wayne Sheldon]

A bunch of intriguing photos here!
Numbers 18 and 19 caught my attention right off!
I could be wrong? But number 18, the 1926 coupe, appears to have clincher wheels on it. Popular belief is that the coupes and sedans were not available with clincher wheels! However, many years ago, I saw (but never had copies of) a couple photos clearly showing closed body model Ts in 1926 with clincher wheels and tires.
A lot of people have quoted and shown sales literature that said closed body cars after some point very early in the 1926 model year would ALL be equipped with wire wheels! That point has been disproven. Way too many era photos exist showing wooden spoke wheels on enclosed body model Ts well into 1927. The clincher question is less certain, either way. While sales literature and other records indicate the enclosed body cars should not have been available with clincher wheels and tires in 1926/'27? There is evidence floating around indicating that some enclosed body cars did have clincher tires and wheels during those years. Perhaps, maybe, some were special ordered that way? Possibly corporate fleet accounts? Maybe local dealerships would swap them out to satisfy a fussy customer? Some of the photos I saw many years ago were factory photos in a private collection.
Somehow, some 1926 enclosed body model Ts had clincher wheels and tires. Not a lot of them. But some did.

Number 19 is not nearly so remarkable. A 1926 roadster. Loss leader model Ts in those final years have been well researched. Roadsters and touring cars without starter and battery, along with bottom rung non-demountable clincher wheels did not sell in large numbers, but were legitimate offerings from the factory.
This car is not one of those "loss leader" cars. It appears to have been equipped with a starting system, and has the one rung up demountable clincher tires and wheels. One interesting thing about this car however, is that a car with clincher wheels that late, should have numerous extra after-market accessories! Front bumper, wind-wings, what appears to be a flip-top dogbone radiator cap with Moto-Meter, rear fender clearance light (may have been a local requirement?), all heading the list. Car is also sporting a winterfront on the radiator, so likely a chilly day in a roadster!
We need to remember our history in the context of its time. Balloon tires were something new! The first real offering of "balloon" tires and wheels was actually in 1923! Only three years before the 1926 improved model T Ford! (This subject is a current discussion over on the AACA forum!) A lot of people are slow to accept change. Many people were suspicious of the new low pressure tires, and weren't yet willing to accept them on their cars. That is likely one of the big reasons Ford continued offering the clinchers even after they published sales literature saying they wouldn't.

[Wayne Sheldon]

If someone is interested? There is a good discussion about the transition from high pressure tires to lower pressure "balloon" tires currently on the AACA. It is mostly about non-Fords, but the information is relevant to the model T's transition.

https://forums.aaca.org/topic/386047-hi ... nt-2437505

[Wayne Sheldon]

Picture number 2, the suicide door coupe. Must be a fairly early 1919, no oil sidelamps, indicating an electric start car. Yet, it has an over the axle wishbone, with an after-market below axle brace added. In addition to the nice five lug demountable rim wire wheels (unusual in those days!), the car has some sort of radiator ornament (could be a Moto-Meter turned sideways?), some sort of tail lamp mounted on the top of the right rear fender, and nickel plated radiator shell and headlamp rims! Not to mention the nice bumpers front and rear.
Now, THAT is a nice little coupe!

[Wayne Sheldon]

Number 11 is interesting (the touring car with three generations sitting on the running board). The elderly lady might remember the Civil War (if they are/were in this country at that time?)
The car, at first appears to be a typical black era touring car. But look closer. One of the first things that caught my eye, is the rear fender. I cannot see a crown on it. It appears to be a flat curve rear fender. The top sockets appear to be the oval style, which would be correct for a 1917, and even some cars as late as early 1919 appear to have had oval sockets. So they are not a big deal. But look at the windshield! It is either an after-market windshield, or Canadian production car? The two oval "lights" in the top's rear curtain also could suggest Canadian production.
So is the car Canadian production? A couple features suggest that as a possibility. However, a few features suggest the car to be somewhat early. Some Canadian features like the different windshield and two oval lights weren't used on Canadian cars until a bit later.
Zoom in close. Look carefully around the steering wheel. It looks tome like an earlier cast brass spark and throttle quadrant, along with the larger paddle levers which were used through most of 1915. That would fit in with possibly flat curve rear fenders?
The front fender and side apron (what little can be seen of them), appear to be 1917 or later.

So is it a USA car with several accessories? Or a Canadian (or other foreign assembly?) car? And is it an earlier car updated to the later front fenders, hood, and radiator? Or a 1917 or later with a few earlier details that somehow got changed?

Speculation?

[Jim, Sr.]

A bunch of intriguing photos here!
Numbers 18 and 19 caught my attention right off!
I could be wrong? But number 18, the 1926 coupe, appears to have clincher wheels on it. Popular belief is that the coupes and sedans were not available with clincher wheels! However, many years ago, I saw (but never had copies of) a couple photos clearly showing closed body model Ts in 1926 with clincher wheels and tires.
A lot of people have quoted and shown sales literature that said closed body cars after some point very early in the 1926 model year would ALL be equipped with wire wheels! That point has been disproven. Way too many era photos exist showing wooden spoke wheels on enclosed body model Ts well into 1927. The clincher question is less certain, either way. While sales literature and other records indicate the enclosed body cars should not have been available with clincher wheels and tires in 1926/'27? There is evidence floating around indicating that some enclosed body cars did have clincher tires and wheels during those years. Perhaps, maybe, some were special ordered that way? Possibly corporate fleet accounts? Maybe local dealerships would swap them out to satisfy a fussy customer? Some of the photos I saw many years ago were factory photos in a private collection.
Somehow, some 1926 enclosed body model Ts had clincher wheels and tires. Not a lot of them. But some did.

Number 19 is not nearly so remarkable. A 1926 roadster. Loss leader model Ts in those final years have been well researched. Roadsters and touring cars without starter and battery, along with bottom rung non-demountable clincher wheels did not sell in large numbers, but were legitimate offerings from the factory.
This car is not one of those "loss leader" cars. It appears to have been equipped with a starting system, and has the one rung up demountable clincher tires and wheels. One interesting thing about this car however, is that a car with clincher wheels that late, should have numerous extra after-market accessories! Front bumper, wind-wings, what appears to be a flip-top dogbone radiator cap with Moto-Meter, rear fender clearance light (may have been a local requirement?), all heading the list. Car is also sporting a winterfront on the radiator, so likely a chilly day in a roadster!
We need to remember our history in the context of its time. Balloon tires were something new! The first real offering of "balloon" tires and wheels was actually in 1923! Only three years before the 1926 improved model T Ford! (This subject is a current discussion over on the AACA forum!) A lot of people are slow to accept change. Many people were suspicious of the new low pressure tires, and weren't yet willing to accept them on their cars. That is likely one of the big reasons Ford continued offering the clinchers even after they published sales literature saying they wouldn't.

Wayne,
I do not know how to make a link to my post about "Ford Dealers Inventory Record Book" on Feb. 16, 2020, at .8:32PM The cars listed are all early 1926 models. Notice that the 3 coupes all have demountable 30x3-1/2 clincher tires. And the bare bones roadster has non- demountable clinchers.

[Wayne Sheldon]

Jim, Sr.
Thank you for this!
It was a bit tricky to find (replies bumped it up a couple days), but here is the link for anyone interested;

https://mtfca.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10514

No photos unfortunately, but the record book does list those cars. The roadster also had no starter, so it was probably one of the real "loss leader" cars! They are early if improved series cars, I didn't check the serial numbers myself for manufacturing dates. The inventory record was in December of 1925.

Records of this sort may seem boring to most people? But they often contain tidbits of information one may find very interesting. One detail I noticed was that wire wheels were not mentioned. Despite all the hoopla by Ford surrounding this advancement, serious research has found that production delays made the wheels quite scarce until a bit later in the model year. Very likely this small town dealer didn't receive any wire wheeled Fords until months later!

Again, THANKS Jim!

[John kuehn]

I also wondered if the bare bones Roadster was a non - starter car since it also had non- demountable clinchers. And I’ll bet the bare bones cars were black also! That was probably the cheapest and most available paint Ford used!
At the end of the so called improved cars era there surely must have been some of these cars that the dealers would try to sell at discounted prices.

[Wayne Sheldon]

John K,
The bare bones/loss leader cars until the end of production had no starter/generator and battery or the demountable rim wheels. They were equipped with oil side and tail lamps.
The roadster listed in the inventory shared by Jim Sr. (the link I found) lists "starter" as "no", and tires as "clincher". Now, this is a detail I ran into years ago. Before the welded wire wheels became available? Quick notes often referred to the three types of wheels and tires offered on model Ts as "clincher" for the non-demountable rim wheels and clincher tires. The demountable rim wheels and tires would be referred to in some shorthand for "demountable", in this case "Dem." This in spite of the fact that the tires were still clincher tires and clincher rims. The important distinction being that they were in fact "demountable rims". The new type "balloon" tires and wheels were referred to as "balloon" because that was how the tire companies marketed them.
Something a little later I saw years ago had the fourth offering as "Wire" for the wire wheels. That was some sort of sales card from the improved era and listed the four types of wheels and tires as "clincher", "dem". "balloon", and "wire".
I am sure that the shorthand likely varied from dealership to dealership at least some.

The clincher wheel 1926 roadster in the photos above is not a loss leader/bare bones car because the wheels are demountable clinchers, and no oil sidelamps indicate that it is likely a starter equipped car. Of course, the sidelamps could have been removed, or the wheels changed.
As I have said before, a lot of people were slow to accept change. And lower pressure balloon tires were a change a lot of people were not ready to accept by 1926. Remember, balloon tires had only been on the market about three years at that point in time! Most people didn't understand how the new technology was in fact better!

[Norman Kling]

It's quite possible that Henry Ford, knowing this would be the last update of the Model T, before he made the Model A, would use up any spare parts left over from other years which could be fitted to the "Improved Ford". And as it is today, if you want the bare bones lowest price car, you might need to get on a waiting list, while the one with all the extras was in the showroom ready for sale. And since the "great depression" had not yet arrived, and the times were,"roaring" many people spent a little more and got the more deluxe model.
Norm

[Original Smith]

On the California AAA photo, I wonder if that could have been taken around Galt? The Lincoln Hwy. went through there in the 1920's.

[Kevin Pharis]

Picture number 2… In addition to the nice five lug demountable rim wire wheels (unusual in those days!)

Pic is too fuzzy to be absolutely sure, but I suspect these may be Spranger Wire Wheels…

[Wayne Sheldon]

Kevin P, Thank you for that.
I have never really been a fan of wire wheels on model Ts, excepting of course for the 1926/'27 improved Ts with their welded wire wheels. And of course, on appropriate speedsters, I like them fine! But standard model TS during the model T era simply did not have fancy wire wheels very often. However I always enjoy seeing the era photographs showing the exceptions! I thank Tom R and others for finding these photos and sharing them. A handful of people on this forum have shown me more era wire wheeled Ts in five years than I think I saw in the forty years before! There are a few photos that keep showing up and have for many years. Most notably Edsel Ford's 1915 touring car that he drove from Illinois to San Francisco, which interestingly enough arrived in San Francisco on wooden spoke wheels. A couple of Australian and other foreign countries model Ts had wire wheels. There, the model T wasn't a "cheap" car. It was an expensive import worthy of extra features! But in the USA, probably not more than one standard model T in a couple hundred ever had wire wheels before 1926.
Restored model Ts just don't look right to me with wire wheels.

I noticed those wheels were not the ones I usually see. I was wondering what they were.