MTFCA Forum

Today I attended a Tacoma Mocel T Club function with my 1916 coupelet. It waws the second rarest Model T there. Ken's 1918 Canadian coupelet with removable door posts was much rarer than mine.

Maybe, but yours is absolutely beautiful.

You both have great looking cars. I really do love the landau bars, blue colour, brass radiator and white tires of your car.

I'm curious, is there any difference between the Canadian removable post coupelets of that era compared to the US versions?

I checked out Ken's Canadian car yesterday - "Made in Canada" on rad. shell, running boards & block, Robertson fasteners & license hanger attached to p.s. headlamp post for some peculiarities.

Wow! 2nd best. You run with a tough bunch. Beautiful cars!

I've never seen one like the one with the wood posts. I wonder if the wood was orginally natural color? It actually does not look like something Ford would make. Almost likes a Depot Hack which was constructed after market at home. Yours looks the best to me! I thought the top was supposed to fold down the reason for the Landou irons. Does his top fold down?
Norm

The 1918 Canadian is a "pillar less" Coupe - quite rare - world's first "Hardtop" !

Norman K et al, No, the wood was painted body color originally. Most all that "natural" finished wood on model Ts and even many other cars is just a modern fad.
It is believed that maybe ten of the year and a half (mid 1917 through 1918) "pillarless" coupes still exist. Russ Furstnow is restoring one which had been heavily modified over a hundred years. A couple are bodies only (one I believe still in Montana?). In that year and a half, there were three significant variations in the shape of the roof and beltlines. The Canadian version I do not know where it fits in? There is also one in Europe. It was being restored by someone there that used to post on this forum occasionally, but I haven't heard anything of them in a few years now. Its roof and belt lines were slightly different from the USA built pillarless coupes. In other ways it was very much like the American built pillarless coupes. How it got to Europe was not known, may or may not have been how or why the differences?
Maybe ten pillarless coupes makes them slightly more rare than the handful more than ten folding top coupes.

An interesting (at least to me?) question concerning the pillarless coupes and maybe some center-door sedans of the mid 1910s, is the body color.
Now, I have not personally seen up close enough evidence to take a firm stand either way. But sales literature and legend aside, there is some evidence in Ford's historic records to indicate that some Center-door sedans and couplets from 1915 into 1918 may have been painted blue originally. Yeah, I know, this subject comes up from time to time, and a lot of people fervently believe one way or the other. But I am still open to the question? I have yet to see a definitive final answer. Not that it is Earth shakingly important or anything. A few center-door sedans and at least two of the pillarless coupes (including the body only in Montana) appeared to have been blue from very early. Maybe they were repainted early? But then why did Ford factory eliminate the blue paint for them in 1918? (That detail has been shared on the forum in years past by individuals that had access to Benson records.)
Clear as mud. But I am still curious.

My research indicated that midnight blue was used only on 1915 enclosed models and they were brewster green for 1917 and beyond. The colored portions of the body seem to have been below the beltline on the cars with solid roofs. Tom Rootliebs excellent period photos occasionally show these cars and a difference between the colors above and below the beltline can often be clearly seen. The pillerless coupe that has been for sale on ebay for many years now still shows the green paint clearly. Of course cars were often repainted in those days but the upper versus lower color scheme continues to be seen. Hopefully more concrete proof will surface in the future.

To further Mark's comments, the hood would almost certainly have been black, like the rest of the chassis, leaving blue only on the body and turtledeck. This "black hood, color body" style was established among many car makers in the 1915 era for all body styles.

Ford adopted all black for open cars in 1915, so restricting the blue for closed car bodies only allowed them to place any body on any chassis, easing production.