What happened in this famous photo?

[Steve Jelf]

Analyze this. You've seen it many times. Washington DC, 1922.

Why is none of the glass even cracked? What's the canvas thing on the cowl? Is the "stick" on the top really a stick? What year is the car?

[Atomic Amish]

Looks like a drag link or tie rod broke? There isn't really that much damage, as it appears the hood was taken off but not put back on correctly, and the wooden 'sidewalk' or whatever it is isn't torn up like the car dragged along it.

The 'stick', I believe, is a stick. And the canvas cover? Got me! I saw some pictures the other day of a cover over the hood and radiator for cold weather, but why on the cowl is beyond me!

[John kuehn]

Yes I’ve seen this photo a few times. Looking at the car it might be a 20-21 Touring.
A close look shows even the radiator shell is bent inwards. To me that’s really unusual.
I would say the car was dropped on its nose somehow and the front axle is bent too. To do that it must have really taken a lick but as you said why isn’t the windshield glad shattered or at least cracked.

And the cowl being covered is a real head scratcher. Not sure we’ll never know for sure about the whole circumstance.

[Will_Vanderburg]

It has a Maryland plate on it, too

[RajoRacer]

Canvas cover is an accessory "rain shield" - it's in one of the Western Auto catalogs.

[speedytinc]

My guess is the driver hit this platform/street car median & contacted the axle & tie rod & folded the axle under.
High wishbone mount making the front end more prone to buckling under.
I also note the left tire is well worn. The fellow is round. The right wheel has a square fellow.

[Scott_Conger]

Thanks to John, I don't have much of a reply to type! I think he nailed it.

[ForestAcres]

Could it have hit the rounded low protruding front of a street car? Perhaps at an angle? That would force the front of the wheels apart and also do damage below the headlights while leaving the headlights intact. Notice the streetcar in the background, and the tracks next to the platform.

[Scott_Conger]

John K

when the axle folded up the front end dropped and fender irons came in contact with the tires and the only place the headlights will go is inward...that's why the shell is now wasp-waisted

[DanTreace]

Could it have hit the rounded low protruding front of a street car? Notice the streetcar in the background, and the tracks next to the platform.

Agree, contact with a streetcar head on. Perhaps both were slowing but sure can see point of impact. Smack into the hand crank, bent it in, and point was right between the twin license plates that are caved in. The axle folded under, and rest of the front end took damage from the impact.

Most streetcars have a shovel nose to push things like a Ford out of the way

[JohnM]

It hit something like this.

dad12d574e08518f75b0845930b6463e.jpeg (49.78 KiB) Viewed 3742 times

[John kuehn]

That’s a good guess Dan
but I have to wonder if anyone was in the car or not! To take a lick and fold in the axle the driver would have gone through the glass or the steering wheel would have given the driver a humongous bruise! But that’s a guess of course! Maybe the car was just in the way and stalled. Then wacko!

[Norman Kling]

Must have been driven by Laurel and Hardy! Looks to me like the tie rod came off.
Norm

[RajoRacer]

Also ripped the front off the d.s. fender - ouch !

[perry kete]

The "Catcher" on the front of the trolley was designed to catch people and children who ran in front of the trolley so they wouldn't get pulled under it.

6a00d83542d51e69e201b8d0933cf0970c.jpg (33.62 KiB) Viewed 3620 times

[ForestAcres]

In the photo of the trolley that John posted, note what appears to be a coupler on the front of the trolley on the left side of the photo. If they hit head on, that would actually correspond to the drivers fender of the Model T which is punched in and damaged, but the fender on the passenger side of the Model T is mostly undamaged. So even though it isn't the actually trolley that hit this Model T, it shows that a similar design could have done the observed damage.

[Wayne Sheldon]

That photo has been analyzed half to death. I lost the link I had to one of the better discussions about it years ago. (Wish I could find it again.)

Partially from memory, partially a quick glance at it again. The windshield has even fold hinges, which changed to offset fold late-mid 1917. Most likely, the windshield is the original, however, it could have been changed for some reason or another. The top rear curtain is the three window/lights which also changed during 1917 from the earlier "tombstone" style. Era photographs strongly suggest that for a short while during 1917, the later top rear curtains were used on many cars with the earlier windshields. However either of which might have been changed.
Clearly, several things had been done to the car before this accident. The license plate indicates the photo was taken in 1922, so if the car is a 1917, it had a few years to have changes made. The car has after-market headlamp lenses as well as the aforementioned one each square felloe and round felloe front wheels.
1917s had a significantly lesser "cap" on the firewall with basically no drip channel. After the 1915/'16 with the cowl panel somewhat protecting the front of the coil box, the early 1917s in their first winter somewhat revealed the weakness of the lack of a drip channel. And yes, that does seem odd after the first five years of model Ts having their coil boxes almost totally in the open. However, all brass era Ts had a hood former that somewhat protected the front of the firewall from rain. The early 1917s had none, and when it rained, the water ran down the windshield, across the cowl, under the hood and right down to the high voltage posts where they could short out. Rain "umbrellas" were sold after-market for the 1917s to help alleviate that problem.

[Scott_Conger]

I cannot see how a front end collision with a streetcar results in so little damage and leaves no detectable damage on the boardwalk on the side where streetcars are traveling, from the car vaulting over, much less how the car ends up on the opposite side facing the correct direction of travel.

With the side walk a good 8" above the road surface, an indiscreet clip with the left tire will climb that high, dragging the car across the sidewalk instantly with the crank clipping/bending and gouging the sidewalk as it goes over it

who knows? But that was by no means an accident with any significant combined speed or mass associated with it

one thing for certain is the fellow piloting the thing has some very sore thumbs from what the steering wheel did to him when those tires violently skewed.

[DanTreace]

Close-up shows to me that this Ford was skewered on some kind of pointy object to punch in the twin plates!



Click on image to enlarge

Maybe some street cars have clip hitches on the nose to pull them around?

AA80C0EE-0ACB-470C-A2CA-7EBA8C53D8D5_4_5005_c.jpeg (32.5 KiB) Viewed 3575 times

[Scott_Conger]

or that pointy object was the hand crank

[Steve Jelf]

Let's get closer.

A "The felloes were changed to 'square' instead of being rounded, apparently in late 1917 or early 1918 according to a letter dated April 16, 1918 at the Ford Archives."

B The hub appears caked with mud, but I think it has the machined flange for a speedometer gear, making it no later than 1918.

C The nut on the front of the perch indicates the old over-the-axle wishbone, another feature no later than 1918.

D The damaged edge of the platform suggests to me that the driver was getting along OK with one wheel up on the platform and the other down on the street until that wheel hit the slightly sunken road repair (on the left in the full picture), dropping the axle onto the platform. Why was he driving like that? Beats me.

[perry kete]

I would guess that the platform did not run the entire length of the street because it would block cross intersections and perhaps it had a ramp on the end similar to the one in the photo below. The car then could easily run one wheel up on the platform and travel down the road with one wheel on the platform and one on the road until something on the car broke and caused it to collapse.

Trolley platform.jpg (15.34 KiB) Viewed 3367 times

[aDave]

I go with Steve's thought:

"The damaged edge of the platform suggests to me that the driver was getting along OK with one wheel up on the platform and the other down on the street until that wheel hit the slightly sunken road repair (on the left in the full picture), dropping the axle onto the platform. Why was he driving like that? Beats me."

The driver of the disabled auto was in a hurry. To the left of disabled car is another auto parked diagonally, and the roadway between diagonally parked auto and platform was too narrow to drive fast, so fast driver (young one?) thought that with one side of car on platform and other side on road, he (she) could pass rapidly. All went well until road repair, or auto went too close to platform and caught front axle on platform board.

Then again, maybe the disabled auto driver just though it was "cool" to drive partly on the platform??

[TRDxB2]

Assuming that the end of the platform is a bit further down where the man is standing and the angle the car is in relation to the street car platform my guess is that the driver lost control and drove into the platform drivers side first. As the car jumped onto the platform on the drivers side the crank caught the edge of platform and made the centered dent in the license plates (the plates folder under the axle as it moved forward). The passenger side wheel hit the platform denting the rim and the tire caused the rounded dent in the fender. That impact caused the PS wheel to push outward likely breaking the tie rod and squatting the car.
The damaged driver side fender may have happened in another encounter.
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The street car tracks are on the other side of the platform (to the left of the driver).

[kmatt2]

I agree with Steve and others that the car is late 1917 or early 1918 and it has had some parts changed out by the 1922 year on the license plate. Unlike the city bus lines that replaced the street cars that could have the bus stop at the curb, the street car tracks generally were in the center of the street. It was common practice to have a marked area or low platform for pedestrians to board or exit the street car from. Driving threw said passenger loading areas would have gotten the car driver a ticket back in the days that cars and street cars coexisted on the city streets.