MTFCA Forum

Number eight.
A lot of pinstriping on that 1911 touring car!

I always like to see these T photos of T life nearly a century ago. All of them could tell a story and the T that’s 5th from the bottom of the post looks like to me that the guy is using a wider tire tied on to each rear wheel to gain traction to plow a field. I guess you could say this is a genuine “farm fix”!
The 23 Runabout is getting close to being used up but it’s probably going to last a few more years than I think it will.

Photo 10 shows a closed cab pickup closely resembling George Norton's "Lil Red Truck," now belonging the J C Taylor insurance. I believe that body was built by Hercules. This is a fabulous photo showing every detail, a wonderful resource for someone wanting to recreate a period commercial vehicle.

Allan from down under.

The final photo, with the young lady in uniform, is an English van in Tottenham, London.

The first picture is fascinating to me. The faith that they had in their cars is amazing.
I can almost hear the driver say “Hold my beer, it will make it, no problem!”

Can you imaging facing that situation today?

John kuehn wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 20, 2025 8:19 pm

. . . 5th from the bottom of the post looks like to me that the guy is using a wider tire tied on to each rear wheel to gain traction to plow a field . . .

Isn’t that a great photo ? Yup. He’s running rear “dualies” by chaining another tire to the rear wheels. I really wish this showed the implement he’s plowing with, and I see something I’ve often questioned - kerosene side lamps on a slant windshield ‘23, 4, 5 model ??

(Wayne S. - HELP !! (?!?)

Could it be that the cowl lamps were avaliable on the non-starter cars? The encyclopedia says side and tail lamps were similiar to the 1917 non-starter cars and an electric tail lamp on for the 23 year with no side lights. So are the side lights the kerosene side lamps???
Or maybe I’m confused with the description for the 23 year in the lamp section for the 23 year.

Yes, picture number twelve appears (assuming USA build?) to be a one year only low radiator with slanted windshield (does NOT appear to be the Canadian version!) roadster. It has been run hard and put away wet. I wonder how old it was when this photo was taken. The turtle deck/trunk has been removed, replaced by some sort of farming hitch to pull some sort of plow. It doesn't appear to be a deep furrow type plow. I don't recall even knowing what that type of plow was called? But I might have known years ago. I remember my grandfather having something fairly wide (six to seven feet?) with a few rows of curled steel tines. The whole rig probably had twenty to thirty tines on it, cutting a wide swath shallow turn of the topsoil. Judging by the nearfield appearance of the turned soil, I suspect that is what is being pulled.

Back to the car.
1919 through to the end of production, open body cars, TT trucks, and basic chassis were offered with OR without two options. The demountable rim wheels option, and the "electrics package" option including starter, generator, and battery (plus all addition necessary upgrades wiring etc). This particular roadster appears to have gotten neither of those options, making it what was sometimes called the "loss leader" model.
Open body cars that did not get the electrics package did come from the factory with oil side and tail lamps. Even Ford understood the slightly unreliable nature of the magneto powered lights, and provided the oil lamps as a sort of backup.
I find looking at era photos fascinating. One thing I have noticed looking closely at literally thousands of era photos of 1920s model T Fords is how often I see open body model Ts with non-demountable rim wheels. A LOT of people were willing to risk flat tire repairs on the side of the road to save a few dollars on their new car! However, the non-electrics cars are rarely seen. It would appear that people of that day were more concerned about the inconvenience of cranking the car to start it however many times a day, than they were concerned about having to fix a flat tire on the side of the road.
I always get a kick out of seeing the loss-leader roadsters and touring cars.

By the way? The Canadian style slanted windshield had both upper and lower glass panels mounted on hinge pins, so that the glass panes could fold forward. USA built slanted windshield open cars, only the top pane folds forward. And I don't see the hinge pin on the lower glass.

Tell me about the tank truck in photo 3.

That’s an early Form-a-Truck style extension of a pre ‘23 roadster, you can clearly see the left rear chain and sprocket by that child’s store bought toy car.
‘Gasoline’ is written on the tank and it appears a metal box in the rear contains the valves…regular, mid grade and Premium ??…

I’m always asking questions but I wonder how long the low band lasted in the 23 Roadster pulling some sort of plowing set up. It wouldn’t be fun to try to change it in the middle of a plowed field. Whatever it was pulling I think it might have been a harrow instead of a plow. It wouldn’t have to go as deep if the field has been broken up earlier.

The tank truck with 3 compartments probably carried gasoline, kerosene, and motor oil, with gasoline in the largest compartment.

That "Form-a-truck" is neat! Quite a number of companies manufactured such kits, or provided turnkey completed units to order. Smith is probably the best known among the model T crowd. Graham Brothers, later manufacturing trucks for the Dodge Brothers family, and later still the Graham Paige automobile offered kits or completed trucks on almost any automobile chassis, new or used. It is a matter of record that they built a couple to fit the Stutz automobile chassis. Jewett was another manufacturer of Ford truck kits, a few of which do still survive. Interestingly, they appear to not be related to the Jewett automobile which also was connected with the Paige automobile.

That truck's base runabout appears to be a 1917, given the even folding windshield, and I "think" I can barely make out the 1915/'17 horn button on the steering column by zooming in as close as detail allows.
Another interesting detail, is the "umbrella" cloth cover over the front cowling. This is a "fix" unique to the 1917 model Ts. The brass era hood formers (including the 1915/'16) held the hood forward of the firewall more than an inch, allowing rainwater to drip forward of the wooden firewall where the ignition posts come through. From the beginning, there was always some exposure to wetness from the passenger side of the firewall, and with the 1915/'16 firewall hood former and new cowling, some amount of water would even slip down between the cowling onto the back side of the firewall. But usually, it didn't get wet enough to cause serious trouble with the ignition. But for 1917, when Ford put the hood on top of the firewall? All of a sudden, rain would run off the windshield, head down the slope of the cowl, and right under the back edge of the loose fitting hood onto the face of the firewall. It didn't take long for complaints of fouling ignition once the winter rains began shortly after the introduction of the new styled 1917 models.
I have seen accessory catalogs from 1917 offering these "umbrellas" to hook onto the cowl lamp brackets and tuck under or tie down over the hood in such a way as to divert the water away from the front of the firewall and coil posts. Ford fairly quickly added a rain gutter over the top of the firewall. That rain fouling of the ignition is basically unique to the 1917 model year Ts. So, usually, If you notice one of those covers over the cowling, it will be a 1917.
I have however, seen a few examples of Ts with the rain gutter firewall and the "umbrella". I suspect sort of a "belt and suspenders" thing.