MTFCA Forum

Looking at the sales brochure for 1911, the Town Cars have no front doors. The 1912 brochure shows the Town Car with front doors. I have seen several pictures of 1912 Town Cars with and without front doors. Question is, were the fordoors removable? Were they an option? When were they added to the Town Car? Been trying to research this but haven't found an answer.

Ricky,
Since towncars, like delivery cars were not in as high of demand as a touring car, it was not uncommon to have an earlier body on a later chassis. This would account for some 1912s to have fore-doors and others open front.
I dont know if the fore-doors on the town cars were called removable like on the touring cars or not. I don't recall ever seeing any literature with such a designation. My guess is no.

Frank might be more knowledgeable than I.

Keith

I have not seen any information on the front doors on 1911/12 Town Cars also after building one back in 1971 and have always been on the lookout for any information all these years since. At that time very few were known and photographs and information were rare and some have surfaced over the years.
What is obvious is that they varied, Town Car to Town Car. This was put down to the fact more than one supplier was producing the bodies at that time.
Finding an original bodied Town Car with front doors may be very difficult, how they were attached would be then able to be seen but I would think if they were added originally they would rarely be removed in their lifetime.
So the answer probably is - there was no actual rule or time when they had front doors, when the Tourings got front doors the Town Cars probably had them added too.
My TC has no doors but it's a recreation (one version of the designs available at the time). I don't think they would be an advantage to have them installed on a TC but others may disagree.

Did Bruce McCalley ever do any Vintage Ford articles on Town Cars? I'll have to dig through my VFCD library.
I wonder if there were any town car articles in the MTFCI Model T Times?

Yes, Bruce did at least one and possibly more articles on Town Cars. The 1912 Town car shown below is from page 21 of the Sep-Oct 1967 “Vintage Ford.” At the time it belonged to Paul Antonucci.
Respectfully testing to see if I can still post,

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That same exact 1912 Town Car picture I posted above (same background with the steps and the tire valve stems that are visible are all in the same location – clock position) was published earlier in the Mar-Apr 1962 Vol 23 no 2 Horseless Carriage Club Gazette (sorry – I didn’t capture the page number).

I have an e-mail dated Jan 23, 2011 from the person who sold the car to Paul. I need to contact that person to see if he will allow me to share some of that e-mail along with his name or not. The summary item you want to know is the previous owner stated he knows that the car had metal clad “foredoors” prior to it being restored. He did not clarify if they were a removeable style or not.

Respectfully submitted,
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1912 TC Ford Catalog illustration from Bruce McCalley pg 7 of the 1912 section:
And a photo of what in my limited opinion is likely a pair of 1912 Town Cars with the front doors. Labeled from "the old motor" -- sorry no date or link for reference.
And one more again I think likely 1912 snagged from the web but no reference was kept.
There is always so much more to discover.

Very Respectfully,

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Some Ford literature shows a town car with fore doors. They look like tourer doors.

Thanks everyone for the information. A very interesting subject. Always want to learn more about the Model T.