What the heck happened?

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[TWrenn]

Well that WAS a nice '14!! I wonder if they got off into the ditch, rolled it over, put it back upright and now waiting for someone to come to their aid with a HORSE!

[jiminbartow]

If it had rolled over, I believe there would be a lot more damage to the body. As such, most of the damage is to the front. Damaged radiator, left front fender, left front wheel and front lights. I would surmise that it rear rear ended another car. The cracked windshield could have been from the driver or from the vibration caused by the impact. Jim Patrick

[Norman Kling]

Number 5 Has an odd hood and I never saw wood wheels which came off at the hub. Looks like an after market hub.
Number 10 says 1905 Ford. Notice the wheels have what looks like a valve stem between each spoke?
The last picture must be in Amish country? Notice the buggy during the mid 1930's.
Norm

[Rich P. Bingham]

#1 - I agree with Jim, probably not a roll-over, but given the era and the environment, I doubt if the driver rear-ended another vehicle. Looks to me as if he hit a yearling steer or heifer (maybe a deer ?) The impact seems more to the driver's side - putting along, the critter could have darted in front of him suddenly (they'll do that !). Hit, they tend to come up, thus the windshield damage. Also not unlikely it wasn't fatal for the animal, it probably ran off.

As always, a real treasure chest of images ! Thank you !

[su8pack1]

Always nice to see the old pictures and the way it used to be.

[TXGOAT2]

# 1 .... Looks to me like they bumped a cow.

[Original Smith]

Look at the first photo carefully. I believe it is a very late 1912. Notice the placement of the rear door hinge, and the detachable front door. Sorry Tim.

[TRDxB2]

Still standing
Stroud Trading Co

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The Old Holland Hotel next to the new one in Alpine TX

[DanTreace]

Number 5 Has an odd hood and I never saw wood wheels which came off at the hub. Looks like an after market hub.

Those are likely the 'Simplicity', demountable at the hub with a speed wrench he has in his hands.

464083.jpg (136.17 KiB) Viewed 3269 times

[Wayne Sheldon]

A lot of discussion in such a short time. Must be a lot of people stuck inside due to storms! Us? Heaviest snow storm since we came here. First time in seventeen years I actually could not get out, and I could not get out for three days! No electricity for three days, ran out of gasoline for the generator. Been knocking myself out shoveling the long steep driveway, but still couldn't go anywhere because the local private road is too deep! (Finally did get out late yesterday!)

The fifth photo is particularly interesting! I have seen it several times and studied it quite a bit.
Thank you Dan T for the "Simplicity" advertisement!
While this style "demountable" wheels were never popular in America, similar wheels were quite popular in Great Britain and Europe during the 1910s! Could this be a British T? Probably not. About 1912 in America, Rambler had wheels that mounted this way, with a fully spoked wheel as a spare! But it never really caught on here.
There are a few unusual things about this particular Ford.
As Norman K first pointed out, the hood is unusual. However, more than that, the hood and radiator shell are one of several update kits offered back in the day to make your "old fashion Ford" look more modern! Ames, Lawco, and Peerless among several others for several years manufactured such upgrade kits beginning in 1915! The radiator shell fit over the standard Ford brass radiator, and some of them a bit taller. Some hoods had more slope than did others.
Looking closely at the windshield, one can see quite a bit of writing on it! Looks to me like three lines of wording? I sure wish I could read it!
The car body looks like a standard model T, along with 1915/'16 front fenders. The headlamps are unusual, but what are they? Post mounted electric, however of a more bulbous bucket shape than the usual T? Some very early 1915s had a more bulbous bucket, so maybe it is a very early 1915. However the bezels rims and trim of the lamps are all black. Maybe that was part of the updated look?
Looking closely at the windshield and lamps, I noticed something else odd. The windshield appears to be standard Ford issue. However, it appears that the lower windshield frame is bolted into the cowl brackets instead of riveted as were basically all of 1915 and 1916! The first couple months of 1917 style production also had the riveted frame along with the even fold hinges. The relatively rare combination of even fold hinges and bolted cowl brackets was only used for maybe about two months (estimated due to low numbers of the parts as well as few era photos showing that combination). An actual timeline will likely never become known for certain. A recently discovered sales record connected to a specific car with that combination of windshield indicated that that combination was likely used in December of 1916 on the 1917 style models. It appears that about half of all 1917 style/model Ts had the later offset hinges. So why does an apparent 1915 or 1916 have an early to mid 1917 windshield?

I always figured the car was a salesman's car, probably traveling around demonstrating and showing accessories to local auto parts stores to sell.

[modeltspaz]

The photo with the ENORMOUS Rajo billboard was probably taken at Legion Ascot Raceway in, what is now, Beverly Hills, California.
This is not the Ascot Speedway that was started by J. C. Agajanian in Gardena.
The reason I've drawn this conclusion is due to the billboard to the immediate right of the Rajo sign. Bozzani Motor Car Company was located in the "Little Italy" neighborhood of Los Angeles. Bozzani eventually moved to Covina, Ca. It's now called Covina V.W.
If those of you that are familiar with Los Angeles and are unfamiliar with L. A.'s "Little Italy", it was located in what is currently L. A.'s Chinatown. By the mid-1930s, Los Angeles determined that it desperately needed a bigger train depo. Because of the Exclusion Act, Chinese, and Chinese Americans were not able to own real estate in the U. S. L. A.'s original Chinatown was located on the spot where the city fathers chose to build the new train depot. Since the occupants of the land didn't own but only leased, the owners were given 24 hours to vacate the land so the Union Pacific Railway could begin construction on the new Union Station.
George Eastman, of Kodak Camera fame, was sympathetic to the situation and was a key figure in securing locations in, the now mostly vacant, Little Italy.
The last remaining business that was a leftover from the Italian neighborhood on Broadway was Little Joe's restaurant. It opened in the late 19th century as the Italian-American Market. It changed the name to "Little Joe's " in the early 1940s for the same reason A. P. Giannini changed the name of his bank from The Bank of Italy to the Bank of America around the same time. Little Joe's eventually closed in the early 2000s.

[doodlebugt]

The RAJO ad shows up in a movie "Kid Speed" which co-stars Oliver Hardy. I initially thought this was a screen grab from that movie.

[pre15dale]

Those things that look like valve stems on the wheel of the 1905 Ford are chaplets. They are wedges inside the tire that wedge the beads into the clincher rim. They were common on early cars up to 1907 or so. Until they finally decided they weren't nessary.
I have a set of 4 that were on my 1907 2 cylinder Rambler model 21

[Rich P. Bingham]

Dale, many thanks for that explanation. Is there any chance you could post a photo if those items ? I'd be very grateful to see them. I've been intrigued by their appearance in the early photos for years. Many folks have speculated they are multiple valve stems !! (myself included)

[DanTreace]

Dale, many thanks for that explanation. Is there any chance you could post a photo if those items ? I'd be very grateful to see them. I've been intrigued by their appearance in the early photos for years. Many folks have speculated they are multiple valve stems !! (myself included)

Here is one example of the wedge or saddle lugs used to retain the clincher tire onto the rim.

Used for tire locking and most helpful should the tube loose air, as only the force of the air in the tube keeps a clincher tire on its rim

The famous Ford racers used these in the cross county Ocean to Ocean race.

[Scott_Conger]

I've searched in vain to find the Dyke's photo posted just recently which showed these things in use on a cross section of a tire. My search has been to no avail, but suffice it to say that they look almost exactly like a valve stem with upside down bridge washer at 90degrees to normal location (to spread/clamp the bead into the clinch).

The illustration almost invariably is used to "show" bridge washers, and in fact, the poster did not understand what he was looking at (I don't recall if that was the case in the most recent posting, but since I cannot find it, it is moot)