MTFCA Forum

I love the Model S tourabout, but the location of the steering wheel leads me to believe the negative was reversed.

All kind of questions with the above photo. Wonder what the story is?

Funny habit of canting the whole top back, three pictures in this series of NRS ?
And wnat are the 'boots' on the rear wheels in the 8th picture ?

Kaiser wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 12, 2024 6:31 am

Funny habit of canting the whole top back, three pictures in this series of NRS ?
And wnat are the 'boots' on the rear wheels in the 8th picture ?

Canting the top back is a hold-over habit from horse and buggy. Not enough wind resistance at 5 to 20 mph to be a problem. Given the roads and capabilities of the earliest automobiles, similar headway. As soon as it was possible to speed along at 25-30, you don’t see it as much.

I’ve seen ads for those tire “overshoes” with a tread pattern to give better traction for the smooth tread tires that were common.

Getting old and looking at too many pictures. I can count on you guys to get me in the right direction.

I love the step on the rear fender. I wonder if it came from the factory that way.

As always, thanks for the pictures, Tom!

Man that's some old stuff. You don't see a lot of water pump pics. Why do the cranks appear to be in upright positions? Bushing still tight?

Charlie, I believe there is a catch to hold the start crank vertical , later ,of course, leather holsters and a strap kept things from dangling.

The rear wheel boots look a lot like these that are in the Henry Ford Museum. Can't imagine wanting to put those on and off very often.

I see in the first picture that the Ford script is canted at an angle like so many other cars had it at this time. Its the first time I have seen that on a Ford.

Paul

the last picture

Is tying rags the official way to deal with loose spokes?
Is the barrel in the back full of water for the cooling system? I see a hose going in the filler neck
two spare tires. one's huge and the other looks like a bicycle wheel
What's hanging off the front?
Thanks Tom!

Bryant

The "tourabout" is unusual.
While I am not an expert on the N/R/S cars, I know Ford built a couple prototype tourabout/touring cars, at least one on a slightly lengthened chassis.
Another thing I have read in several sources is that a few (possibly less than five?) tourabout/touring car bodies were built in England on N/R/S chassis.
I can't recall ever seeing a photo of one of them other than a maybe longshot not definitely identified.
However, this car in this photo fascinates me! It appears to be professionally done. However, I suspect it was a standard "S Roadster" with a purchased two person seat mounted on the standard "S Roadster" rear deck/box in place of the standard mother-in-law seat. I base this upon the size of the deck box under the seat being narrower than the outer sides of the body's base. It appears to be the same width as the boxes under the common MIL seats. A built as a tourabout body would likely have had a wider base under the seat.
But all that is mostly semantics. The car was what it was, and it was that in the original era, making it an very interesting and unusual car.

Although the car appears longer than a standard N/R/S car, I have convinced myself that it is the standard chassis length. The eye plays tricks on the mind, and the mind rationalizes what the eye sees. I compared the tourabout with another S Roadster above. The sharper angle of the tourabout photo coupled with the larger body makes the car appear longer. It even makes the running board appear longer. However, I extrapolated a rough measurement between the front and rear wheels (to compensate for the angle and distance illusion), and compared the wheelbase and running board lengths. My result was that the tourabout is not any longer in chassis than the regular S roadster.

It has been pretty well established that people and dealers were adding full size seats onto the rear of runabouts early in the days of production automobiles in order to have larger passenger capacity automobiles at a lower cost than the larger automobiles. This was even done on Curved Dash Oldsmobiles before Ford offered the model N to the world! Several very good photographs exist of early 1909 model T "tourabout" automobiles on early gray painted model T roadsters, supposedly somewhat earlier than Ford officially offered a "tourabout" (in green).

Paul,
Good eye on noticing that non-winged angled Ford script embossed in the top tank on the radiator on the first image. I don't think I have ever seen one before.

👁

That first photo is also very interesting. The fenders would suggest that the car is a later model, maybe an R or S. They do not appear to be the simple early style plow type fenders. Look at pictures eight, fifteen, and sixteen for earlier N fenders.
However, zooming in on the first photo clearly shows a honeycomb radiator in addition to the small slanted script. Also, if I am not mistaken, that appears to be the early style radiator neck and cap used only for part of 1906.
I have seen and heard of honeycomb radiators being used on N/R/S cars, but I don't know the models or timeline for them. The unusual script and maybe early style neck, on a honeycomb radiator, all has me wondering about it. What model or even year is the car?

I certainly have more questions than answers on this one!