My first exposure to a Model T

[DLodge]

Until 1950, my grandparents lived on Wayne Avenue in University City, MO. Their next-door neighbors were the Murphy family, who had four sons in their teens / early twenties. The two older boys bought a Model T for a few dollars and drove it around the neighborhood. They would sometimes give kids a ride or let them play in the car. I think I was probably six or seven in these photos and the girl with me a year or so younger.

[Rich Eagle]

Some of those memories really etch themselves into our minds don't they.
I remember you giving some magical rides.
Great pictures.
Thanks
Rich

[Raoul von S.]

A TT flatbed sitting in quiet repose in a neighbor's barn was a repeated source of
fun for me (and friends) to play on when we were little. There were others around
in crumbling condition behind barns and out in the woods, but this one was probably
only needing air in the tires to be ready to help with the harvest. It took me most
of 50 years to finally get one like I said I would back then ! Wish I had photos of that
truck in the barn.

[RustyFords]

There was a TT sitting about 50 yards away from the field we used for discus and shot-put at my school in the 80's. After school when I was in Jr. High, I'd go sit in it and pretend to drive it. My siblings and I walked home from school, so I had the luxury of goofing off after school let out.

Then, when I moved up to high school, the Ag Shop teacher had a Touring Car (with the fenders removed and piled in the seats) sitting in a corner of the Ag Building. When I was a senior, I had a class period where I was an office aide and, other than walk around and pick up attendance slips, I did pretty much nothing. So, I'd go over the to Ag Shop (there was no Ag class that period) and look at the T. Sitting right on top of the engine was a copy of the Service Manual. I'd read it for a while, then sit and stare at the car. The Ag teacher was a great guy...and didn't mind me hanging around. The car belonged to his grandfather and his plan was to put it back together and get it running. He never did. It got moved outside the shop and sat in the weather, then it was put up for sale for a few hundred dollars. I had money from working on cotton farms during harvest and working as a grocery store sacker the rest of the year but my dad's exact phrasing was, "why in the hell would someone want that damned old thing"...and he refused to let me buy it. If he hadn't blocked my plan, my first T would've been in 1985 instead of a couple years ago.

I left for the military, then went to college and started a family and sadly, the poor old Touring car sat out in the weather that whole time. The last time I saw it, it was a rusted out hulk being used as yard out in front of a gas station in the next town over. Too bad...it was mostly rust-free and had an intact original interior in it when I first saw it.

[E THOMAS]

Before I was ten I had collected a number of Model T parts. Back in the 60's and early '70s, there were always old Fords to be found in the woods, behind sheds, and in the overgrown perimeter of abandoned farms. My friends and I would venture out sometimes for days with tools and a wheelbarrow to salvage Model T parts. We even went so far as to excavate in old dumps. Plan was to build up the chassis, axles, wheels and frozen engine I had. The prize of my collection was an early wood steering wheel with a cast brass spider. This was in mint condition having come out of the corner of a collapsed garage. After a few years of my ownership of an expanding inventory of Ford parts, my father would have none of it and when we moved to another house, he threw the lot of it in the scrap metal bin at the dump. When you do that to an impressionable kid, he will forever HOARD old parts forever.

My first actual ride in a Model T was courtesy of Erik Haartz, son of the convertible top fabric family that lived nearby. It was a 1926 Touring car, with a two speed rear axle. That ride etched a resolve to one day own a Model T.

[Raoul von S.]

Erik, Your story sounds exactly like mine ! Twin sons of different fathers ???

[VWGary]

I enjoy these types of stories, here's mine. Growing up in a city in the 50's my attraction was to big American cars. By 1968 I was bitten by the air cooled VW bug. Originally beetles but later our attention was on VW's commercial line of vehicles. It wasn't until about 1990 or so I got my first ride in a T, a brass roadster at that. I was hooked and the search began. Almost bought a brass fire chiefs car but we couldn't get together on price then looked at a few black era tourings. Life, other VW's and a couple of British cars got in the way so it wasn't until 2006 we bought our 1st T, a 26 roadster. Our tenure with T's was a short one but my love for them keeps me coming to this forum.

[varmint]

Not the first time I saw a Model T but calling it my first exposure. Having lived in Virginia, in 1973 which was I believe my second trip to Luray Caverns, this time I got to see the Car & Carriage Caravan Museum. I don't know if it was called that back then but those were the oldest group of cars I've seen. My wife and I have visited probably 20-30 car museums but I think the Luray grouping stands out for its small building size and car age. End of rambling.

[ROBERTHOOPS]

My father had a farmer friend in New Jersey back in the 1930's and 40's. He had a dilapidated Model T roadster, where his chickens roosted, parked outside. I never thought that this car would run. One day he hitched a wagon to it, filled it with live piglets in burlap bags (tow sacks) and hauled them to the market in town. He lived on a long dirt road and the town was around 10 or 15 miles away. I was invited to go with him and of course jumped at the chance. I was probably around 6 years old at the time. I remember that he had to crank the T.

[Original Smith]

I've been interested in old cars since I was about 7 years old. When I was 14, I joined the HCCA, and started going to swap meets with my dad. While I was a senior in high school, a neighbor gave me my first ride in a black Model T centerdoor. I was hooked, but my parents wouldn't let me get one until they saw that high school diploma. Within 6 months of getting that diploma, I had my first Model T, and I've had one ever since.

[WayneJ]

Growing up in the 50's in suburban Milwaukee (Brown Deer) I was fascinated by the old cars in the local 4th of July parade. I remember my Dad pointing out a Detroit Electric and our neighbor had a 34 Plymouth Coupe that he also drove in the parade. One day at the dinner table, the conversation turned to old cars, and my Dad explained that early Model T's had a crank to start the engine, instead of an electric starter motor. In kindergarten one of my first "art" projects was my rendition of a Model T, complete with the starter crank. Of course I had never seen an actual Model T, non the less, my teacher was quite impressed, and sent my picture home with a note to my parents, who proudly displayed my "artwork" taped to the kitchen wall. Later, when I was about 10, a local Model T Club had a car show in Vermont Park, in Mequon, Wisconsin, where Mom took this photo of me:

I didn't get my first real T until I was 60, and it didn't seem like it could be a "real" T if it had a starter.

Here is the same car, 3 years later: