5 mi. to the quart.

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[Wayne Sheldon]

Number fourteen is a rare look at the early version of the 1910/'11 torpedo roadster. Although a lot of the early sales literature show the cars with the square gasoline tank, in truth, they were only on the very early production, and in small numbers. Factory photos can be found occasionally, and showing the car in its best light. Here we get to see one with tire chains and mud splattered on the car. A real one in the real world.

The third photo is a nice look at a 1915/'16 touring car. I cannot see horn bulb or button, so cannot narrow down its timeframe very much. The lamp trim appears to be black, so likely late 1915 or 1916. I am always on the lookout for photos of an early 1915 showing the four rivet front fenders. Sadly, very few photos of these cars actually show the top of the front fender well enough to count the rivets or be sure of the rectangle or triangle pattern. I know they were used for a few months, mostly because I saw enough original cars that still had them years ago. Some people still don't believe it, and a few more photos showing the four rivet pattern would be nice. This particular photo I can see the top of the fender! But cannot quite make out the rivet pattern.

[John kuehn]

The next to last photo has a well seasoned garage wooden floor! The mechanic sitting on the floor has some coveralls on that was the standard of the early days of being an auto mechanic. Interesting photo among some real neat ones including the 1910 T Torpedo that has tire chains on it. The car hasent been on a muddy road yet since to looks pretty clean. . I guess it was a photo op picture.
It’s looks like the guy sitting on the floor is using a ratchet jack that was common for the time period.

[TWrenn]

Number fourteen is a rare look at the early version of the 1910/'11 torpedo roadster. Although a lot of the early sales literature show the cars with the square gasoline tank, in truth, they were only on the very early production, and in small numbers. Factory photos can be found occasionally, and showing the car in its best light. Here we get to see one with tire chains and mud splattered on the car. A real one in the real world.

The third photo is a nice look at a 1915/'16 touring car. I cannot see horn bulb or button, so cannot narrow down its timeframe very much. The lamp trim appears to be black, so likely late 1915 or 1916. I am always on the lookout for photos of an early 1915 showing the four rivet front fenders. Sadly, very few photos of these cars actually show the top of the front fender well enough to count the rivets or be sure of the rectangle or triangle pattern. I know they were used for a few months, mostly because I saw enough original cars that still had them years ago. Some people still don't believe it, and a few more photos showing the four rivet pattern would be nice. This particular photo I can see the top of the fender! But cannot quite make out the rivet pattern.

Interesting too, is for such an early Torpedo, it lacks that ugly looking "torpedo horn"...no idea when it started/stopped on this car of course.

[jiminbartow]

Quart of gas or a quart of oil?

[TWrenn]

Quart of gas or a quart of oil?

Let's hope is gas eh? That'd be 20 mpg! Not bad.

[Drkbp]

Wayne,
Your comment above about the four rivet fenders got me to looking at some old '15 photos.
I'm sure you have seen this one but is the only one I have. At the 1915 San Francisco
exposition assembly line Ford set up. The four rivet pattern is clear on the front
passenger fender and also can be seen on the driver side. I believe the show opened
in March 1915.

[RajoRacer]

Short story regarding this Expo - member in our local T Club now own his Grandpa's '15 Touring which supposedly was one of the many that were assembled at the that Expo - Gramps was a long time member of the HCCA in SoCal. or Nevada.

[Wayne Sheldon]

Wayne,
Your comment above about the four rivet fenders got me to looking at some old '15 photos.
I'm sure you have seen this one but is the only one I have. At the 1915 San Francisco
exposition assembly line Ford set up. The four rivet pattern is clear on the front
passenger fender and also can be seen on the driver side. I believe the show opened
in March 1915.

I have that same photo on my computer, borrowed from somewhere on the internet a number of years ago. It is far and away the best showing of the four rivet pattern on 1915 front fenders.
My problem with the photo is that since it was the temporary San Francisco Exposition assembly line, it doesn't necessarily represent standard production or timeline. It also makes me question whether the use of those fenders there at the fair might explain why so many California 1915 cars had the four rivet fenders. I suspect I am reading more into those questions than is necessary. We know those fenders show up all around the country, and perhaps they were used a bit later at the fair than other places, but that difference made would likely be small.
One of the old car clubs I belonged to many years ago also had someone owning an Exposition built 1915 that had been bought by a family member at the fair. He had the original paperwork in a frame he sometimes displayed with the car. Fascinating history!

Fifty years ago, most people were still convinced that the four rivet fenders on a 1915 were incorrect. And many people had already replaced them with the three rivet fender in an effort "to make the car more correct". Sadly, nearly all that effort really only resulted in erasing real history.

I have spent hours studying that photo. Have you noticed the double exposure on one side of the photo? The viewer's right side shows doubling of everything white. But I cannot see any significant doubling in the crowd? Did the photographer accidentally pull the film shade partway while setting up the camera? And why would a flawed photo have been so widely distributed back then?

[hull 433]

Suddenly four rivet 1915s are everywhere, or at least more evidence for them.

Here's a Ford factory photo showing the company photographers on a four rivet Ford. The side lamps are black while the headlights are black and brass, a kind of transition 15-16 feature we see a lot of (one set trimmed brass, one not, can be either set). It would be impressive to see the four rivet pattern from the main factory this late.

[Herb Iffrig]

The photo of the 1910 Torpedo is actually a 1911 model year car as I understand that the cars were called 1911's. I see it has a regular horn on it' not the horn with the curved down end. Those horns are known as "Torpedo" horns. This period photo shows that regular horns were also used on the 1911 Torpedo runabout cars.

[Drkbp]

This is a factory photo of the late 1914 style touring with the four rivet "peaked"
fender. Some call them "1915's" as they show in the "Ford line for 1915". Black
painted firewall, E & J 32 side lamps with one piece font, etc. A little hard to
see but this example also has the cross bead on the wide part of the fender.

[Wayne Sheldon]

Herb I, Personally, I have always considered the earlier torpedo roadsters to be 1911 models. However many people want their cars to be earlier than the traditional model year considers them to be. So along with the "1908" model Ts, and all the numerous 1909s that were built during the even then called 1910 model year? I just grin and bear it while people toss around model years for their cars to reflect the early manufacture.
That photo is interesting. I wonder who and when the date was applied to it? Was it a factory photo? Or maybe a dealership? The car appears to be fairly new, and unless the photo was taken much later (and the gasoline tank changed at some time?), with that gasoline tank it would likely have been manufactured late in 1910. Still, I wonder about who and when that date was applied to it.

Stan G/hull, Thank you for adding that photo. I don't recall ever seeing that one before. Very interesting that the car would have the four rivet fenders and black trimmed sidelamps.
My understanding from what I have read of other's research into the lamp trim, is that bright brass trim began being replaced by painted black (sometimes over brass?) trimmed lamps in early July of 1915. Brass trimmed lamps continued to show up through August of that year at least, with anecdotal evidence of some brass trimmed lamps as late as October of 1915.
As far as I have read, no real timeline has been established for the four rivet front fenders. Fifty years ago, historians and hobbyists were convinced that those fenders weren't even used by Ford, that they were some sort of universal replacement sold by after-market parts houses. But the numbers don't fly. There were way too many such fenders, and nearly all of them were on either very late 1914 style cars, or early 1915 model Ts. Almost none were found on 1916 model Ts, of which about a million were made. If the four rivet fenders were universal replacements? Hundreds more of them should have been found on earlier cars as well as the 1916s.
The four rivet and billed and beaded front fenders began showing up on the early center-door sedans and couplets about October of 1914. But when they begin being used on the late 1914 style cars is not recorded as far as I know? A lot of people seem to thing the 1914s had no bill on the front fenders, in spite of the fact that a lot of era photos show them that way. The 1914 style open cars continued to be built in declining numbers throughout January well into April of 1915. My understanding is that that fact has been verified by researching the Benson Ford archives. I find myself wondering how many cars through how many of the months of late 1914 into April of 1915 did the 1914 style open cars get the four rivet billed and beaded front fenders?

Before so many hobbyists "corrected" their 1915s by replacing the four rivet fenders with the more common three rivet 1915/'16 front fenders? Nice original 1915 models Ts often had the four rivet fenders, and those that had them were usually manufactured before June of 1915 (if the original numbers were known to identify the approximate build date?).

All that to lead to the possibility that a T built in July (or even August?) of 1915 could have had the earlier four rivet fenders with the later black trimmed side lamps.
Certainly an intriguing photograph!