MTFCA Forum

The last photo could have gone so wrong!

You are so right , all that shattered plate glass in the butt if that top and windshield attachment fails as they lean on it.

Photo number;
1. Can be difficult to tell on after-market commercial bodied Ts. Appears to be a 1915/'16.

2. 1913. Difficult to tell from this angle, but RF fender appears to be one of those odd 1913s with the under front lip angling forward.

4. 1917. Has the even folding hinges with the lower frame bolted (not riveted) into the cowl brackets. Only used for a few months early to mid 1917.

6. 1915/'16 runabout. Notice Firestone/Pearlman type demountable rim wheels.

7. Interesting speedster/roadster. Appear to be 1917 or later Ford fenders? However, looks like a brass radiator under the black era shell and an after-market hood hiding its earlier beginnings?

10. Interesting visor over the windshield.

11. Interesting speedster with some body. The fenders would seem to indicate a 1915/'16 beginning? Later hood, whether Ford or after-market, and what appears to be a typical mid to late 1910s turtle deck trunk with an interesting body between them.

12. Canadian RHD. Note the top socket's clamp, and bulb horn. Horns like that were usually used in part of Europe and exotic countries. Something else rarely ever seen on American model Ts is the step plates!

15. A 1915 T touring car, the horn bulb appears to be hiding behind the after-market Klaxon horn.

16. Other than why are two guys sitting like that on their car? The thing I find very interesting is the utility pole. Having had worked in communications systems contracting for over thirty years, I tend to notice those things. I don't think I have ever before seen a utility pole with that many cross-arms on it! Must be a telephone hub/station nearby?

Awesome, Thanks for sharing.

I had to share this. I thought only one photo of my family's first car, a 1917 touring, existed. The late Rich Eagle turned it into a beautiful painting that I cherish. Recently I found another, mixed among some of my grandfather's legal documents. it shows my 10 year old father sitting on the running board and his brother Harold, both with big grins. I look at their car and i see my own '17 Touring....a connection to family.

Wayne, until I read your post, I hadn’t paid any attention to the utility pole, but looking at it I don’t see any evidence of wires which is odd also! It is a very tall pole as well, judging from the building next to it, it looks to be over 50 feet tall. I’ve seen pictures of utilities in India like that, but only in large cities in the US, and not that many crossties. My thought is a large railroad junction, with phone and telegraph wires that were in close proximity with low voltage. Probably wrong, but my best guess!

Another thing I notice is the amount of caked on dirt on vehicles of the period, especially in what appear to be rural neighborhoods. My guess is the difficulty in getting water to wash a car. I would guess that most homes and farms didn’t have running water, so no hoses to wash with, just buckets of hand pumped water to wash with, and more to rinse with, which just wasn’t worth it in time or effort! In rural Indiana where I live, the rural electric wasn’t built until after WW2, in 1947. I remember my uncles mom’s house having hand pumps and an outhouse until after 1970. They did splurge and put in a hand pump in the kitchen at the sink in the early 1960’s!

Bill D, Most of the insulators are also hiding in the haze of the photo, probably bad lighting among other things. I can see about fifteen or twenty insulators, and suspect there are a whole lot more! The phone wires in those days were usually single pair of wires to a party line for local service. They were fairly small lines, and often hide in the backgrounds of photos. Some of those wires could also be telegraph, still in common use at that time. The chances are pretty good that they are very near a rail junction. Phone lines as well as telegraph lines were often installed on railroad right-of-ways.
Years ago, when we were living in Livermore California, I often drove on the old main road between Livermore and Pleasanton. The road ran alongside the old rail line, still in occasional use, and between the road and the tracks was an old sort of abandoned very old long phone line between the two towns. The lines hadn't been used in decades, but were left in place to retain the legal right-of-way. The poles were a lot shorter than this one, somewhat less than twenty feet above the ground. A tall person standing on the ground could almost reach the the bottom wires at the low point of their sag.
Things like that always fascinated me as I was at that time working in communications systems contracting, and with my interest in history, naturally interested in those old phone lines. One day, out of curiosity, I stopped on the shoulder of the road, and counted the insulators and lines on one of the more intact poles. Even it wasn't complete, so I had to estimate some missing pieces. I forget the exact number, but if I recall correctly, there were just short of eighty individual lines running originally running the five miles between the two towns.
Such things changed a lot in the decades that followed those lines being used. Especially in the 1930s into the 1950s, phone systems changed very quickly.

Tim J, Your family's touring car appears to be a mid to late 1917, based upon the three window "lights" on the top's rear curtain, the offset windshield hinges, and small horn button on the top side of the steering column. The top and windshield were later style beginning about mid 1917, while the horn button began for 1915 and ended very early for the 1918 model year when the combination horn and light switch was used for a bit over one year.

Wayne, I agree. The other photo I have shows the top sockets much more clearly and they are definitely oval. Other than such clues I have no idea of it's serial number or build date. Nothing about it exists in family records except the two photos.