What, you may ask, is left to write about the Ford Model T ? The most influential car of the 20th century has been the subject of books, films, documentaries, and articles since Henry Ford took the concept of an assembly line to its ultimate conclusion. That concept not only revolutionised the car the industry, but set standards for manufacturing world-wide. What is left to write about the Model T is the personal experiences.
In our case that of the Hubbard family the Model T is a car close to our hearts. In the image above my grandfather, George Ernest Hubbard is at the wheel of an early 1920s Model T. Next to him is my grandmother, in the back seat are my aunt Muriel and uncle Les. Next to the car holding a rifle is my uncle Keith and the boy next to him is my father Roy. All are deceased. Those objects hanging from the car are turkeys. The photograph was taken around 1923, which makes it so special. Within a year my grandfather would be dead, at age 42, when my father was just aged just six.
As such this is probably one of the last photographs taken of George. His untimely death made newspaper headlines in Western Australia and resulted in a Royal Commission WA's first such inquiry. To cut to the chase Constable George Ernest Hubbard from Kojonup died from a ruptured appendix while a doctor played cards. It was an inglorious end to a promising career as a police officer in outback West Australia. The doctor was disbarred.
It is doubtful on a police wage he could afford a car, so we suspect the Model T was owned by the WA Police Force. Irrespective whether it was police-owned or not, the fact that it was in outback WA at this time has significance. Not only was it in the outback but being used in turkey hunts in an area with no made roads and in this case not even any tracks. It is this point that to some extent sums up the Model T. It was a resiliant, reliable motor vehicle. Yes, it sold on price, being much cheaper than any other car the older it got the more Henry Ford dropped the price to keep it a car for the masses but the car could perform.
These days it would only be a four wheel drive with a confident, experienced driver who would take a vehicle `off-road' in the truest sense. Modern passenger cars sit low to the ground and are simply not built for anything much more than a bitumen base. Back then it was different. The cars firstly had to have good ground clearance with large wheels. They needed it as the roads in the US were outside the major cities still in the horse and buggy era. That means muddy quagmires after rain and deeply rutted tracks when it all dried out. Australia was no different and probably even more difficult.
So the first prerequisite was body clearance. The next was having low-ratio gears. Between these two assets you'd be surprised where these two wheel drive ancients could get to. In fact in the period 1908 when the Model T was built right through to the early 1920s Australian car dealers used the capabilities of their cars off-road to help sell cars. The Brisbane Ford dealer for instance in 1915 toured that vast State in a Model T, including the channel country, without a major hiccup.
We found our featured Model T at a Gold Coast Antique Auto Club display at Mudgeeraba late last year. It's a 1918 model, not that it matters greatly with Model Ts, which had minimal changes during the vehicle's long life span of almost 20 years. We have also featured a Hungarian postage depicting a 1908 Model T.
It is worth repeating the words of Henry Ford, which seem to have been written with our family photograph in mind. It will be a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces.
Henry Ford did not design the Model T, but set the simple perameters for designers to follow. It was designed by Childe Harold Wills and a pair of Hungarian immigrants, Joe Galamb and Eugene Farkas leading the design team. It was powered by a 2.9 litre (177 cubic inch) in line four engine and went against the grain at the time by having a single block as opposed to individual casings for each cylinder.
The 15 kW engine gave the Model T a top speed of around 64 70 km/h. Electric head lamps were introduced in 1915, but a starting battery was not made available to around 1926. The Model T was traditionally started with a crank handle. The starting procedure was a complicated affair requiring a deft, experienced touch. We'll let the Model T experts explain that. What we do know is if the spark was not retarded enough the crank handle which you grabbed and turned to start the engine could kick back and inflict serious pain and injury. At the same time you cranked the engine you also operated a wire choke that was found near the base of the radiator.
The Model T was a car with character. When low on fuel it had trouble climbing hills as the fuel was gravity fed from a tank under the front seat. The cure was simple: reverse up hills. I think the first time I read this was in a John Steinbeck novel, probably `Cannery Row.' Ford moved the fuel tank late in the car's life to avoid this happening. Drivers did not have a great choice of gears: two forward and one reverse. Suspension on the Model T was basic: a transversely mounted semi-elliptical spring front and back. Wheels were wooden `artillery' wheels and there were no front brakes and drums on the rear wheels operated by the floor lever inside the car. The extreme right foot pedal applies a band around a transmission drum for ordinary braking by slowing power to the wheels.
As mentioned tall wheels were required and for most of its life the Model T had 76 mm tyres (30 inch) mounted on the artillery wheels, which became steel welded in 1925 or 26. The late-in-life changes to the Model T are a reflection that the car was literally being overtaken in the technology stakes by most other makes. Henry Ford was a stubborn old cuss and change did not happen easily. The reason for this was simple. Ford's creedo was get it right the first time and there's no need to change. More than 15 million Model Ts were built and many, no doubt, have a human story attached. This was ours. |
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