Memories Of My First Car
by Douglas Samuelson - email:  dsamuelson@frii.com

I lived on a farm in the Mid-West and rode a school-bus to and from school every day. One of the regular stops for the bus was at a rural Catholic church approximately 5 miles from the farm where I lived. There were the church and 2 houses on the property and in a grove of trees surrounding the property, was an old vehicle. I had no idea of the make and model, but my curiosity was aroused. After questioning several students on the bus, I found that the mystery vehicle was a 1927 Model T Ford Pickup that was owned a bachelor uncle of one of the students.

My best friend lived only 2 miles from the church, and after a few days of negotiation with the nephew of the owner, my friend and I purchased the Model T for $15. My next hurdle was to inform my dad of our purchase, but I decided to put that on hold until we had the Model T in our possession. I knew that he would not be enthused.

We made arrangements pick up the Model T one evening after school. I rode my bike to my friend's farm and the two of us rode our bikes to our new "treasure", one of us carrying a 6 volt electric fence battery, and the other a 2 gallon can of gas. We were so excited that the 2 mile ride took only a few minutes, and we arrived, out of breath and ready to embark on our new adventure.

The Model T was one of the most beautiful things that I had ever seen! Two of the 30X3 1/2 tires were flat. The top bows were in place but there was no fabric, and the seat consisted of only the springs. The body had been repainted in red but most of the red paint had peeled, revealing the original black color.

Neither my friend nor I had any knowledge of a Model T. We had been informed that the magneto was not working (that was the reason for the 6 volt dry cell battery). We had no way to inflate the 2 flat tires, so we installed the 2 good tires and wheels on the rear and dismounted the other 2 tires and installed the 2 wheels and rims on the front. The radiator had been drained but we managed to persuade one of the residents to give us a pail of water and we poured the 2 gallons of gas in the tank.

The Model T had a metal box attached to the firewall. Inside the box were 4 wooden coils. When we hooked up the battery to the coil box, the coils began to make a buzzing noise. There were 2 levers on the steering column. One was a manual throttle and the other was the spark advance. Fortunately, someone had advised us to retard the spark by pushing the lever to the uppermost position when hand cranking the engine, or one of us could have ended up with a broken arm. Our little jewel had an electric starter, but it was laying in the back of the pickup box.

With water in the radiator, gas in the tank, air in 2 tires, and the coils buzzing, we were ready for our maiden voyage. By this time it was almost dark. To our surprise, the engine started with very little effort. I will never forget the sound. There was a short piece of exhaust pipe coming off of the exhaust manifold and the muffler was not connected, and when the engine was revved and slowed down, flames would shoot out of the pipe and the engine would "back-fire". To me it sounded like an Offenhauser!

We had flipped a coin to see who would be the first to drive and I won the toss. We loaded our bikes in the back and I settled down on the bare seat springs and eased the "T" out of the grove and onto the gravel road. The Model T had 3 foot pedals and one lever to control the transmission and brakes. When you positioned the lever in the middle of it's travel and pushed the left pedal, the T would shudder and begin to move forward in low gear, and when you reached a moderate speed, moving the lever to the extreme forward position and releasing the pedal caused the T to lunge into high gear.

I felt like Barney Oldfield with the moon high above in the dark of the night with no headlights, the bark of the exhaust, and the wind blowing in my face. It was all I could do to keep the T between the road ditches and it felt like we were going 100 m.p.h. Within a few minutes we were turning into my friend's driveway.

My friend's dad was aware that we had purchased the T and was waiting for us when we pulled in the driveway. He was a man of few words but his word was the "law". He wore bibbed overalls, a red bandanna around his neck, and he chewed tobacco. Surprisingly, he seemed to be interested in the T. He instructed my friend to put the T in their hog barn. When my friend attempted to drive into the barn (the door was barely wide enough), his foot slipped off of the low pedal and the T lunged into a stack of baled straw and popped off the right side front wheel center cap as it passed through the doorway. After a spit of tobacco and a couple of swear words, my friend's dad gave us a dissertation on how to start and drive a Model T.

When I finally arrived at home that evening, I had to break the news to my dad. I think that he may have been forewarned by my friend's parents because he was rather calm and told me that he would go to look at the T the next evening.

The rest of that summer was spent working on the T. We removed and installed the cylinder head and oil pan just to see what "made it tick". We re-lined the transmission bands but it did not correct the shuddering in low and reverse (I later found out that this was a characteristic of the Model T). We would drive it in the fields and race around the terraces which provided a nice bank to prevent us from over-turning. We had a one mile stretch of mud road between my home and my friends and we would run time trials a top speeds of 45 m.p.h.

It was a fun summer but the T was retired to our cattle shed for the winter and by the next spring I had purchased another car, a 1950 Ford 2-dr. V-8. The Model T sat in the shed for the next 3 years before we sold it for $35. Several years later I lost track of it. Today I wish that I could have it back, but it is probably in "Model T Heaven".

My lifetime career in the automobile business began that night back in 1952. Little did Henry Ford know that when he built the first Model T, how many millions of lives would be influenced by the "Tin Lizzie".