Local Model A club keeps old Fords rolling along
David and Donna Anderson of Wooster on the sideboard of their Roadster convertible. The Andersons are members of the Mohican chapter of the Penn-Ohio Model A Club.
Once upon a time, if you had seen one Model T Ford, you’d seen them all. Not so for the Model A. If you’ve seen one, chances are it’s one of a kind, or as close to it as a production vehicle can come.
Back in the decade that Ford made the Model T, its first popular model, the company painted them all black to keep from having to shut down the assembly line. Eventually, Ford relented and other colors came into play. The Model A never had any such rules, so each one is its own type.
The Model A is a big hit around here, like just about everywhere — enough so that the Mohican chapter of the Penn-Ohio Model A Club has roughly three dozen members, according to Eric Myers, chapter president.
“When we meet, it’s not always just car talk,” Myers said. “We’ll talk about a lot of other things as well.”
Membership gives Model A enthusiasts access to others who have experience with the century-old models. Have a problem? Someone else has probably encountered something similar and knows how to fix it.
“They’ve been down this road,” Myers said. “They say, ‘Oh, yeah, you just do this.’”
According to Ford production figures, the carmaker produced roughly 4.8 million Model A cars between 1928 and 1931. Of those, anywhere from 20,000 to 2 million remain, though the latter number seems unlikely. Estimates fall almost anywhere between, and the only thing people seem certain of is nobody is certain how many there are.
The Model A was a step up from the Model T. According to www.corporateford.com, the Model A was sleeker and lower than its predecessor. It also was safer, nicer to look at and went faster.
That they come in more shapes and colors than the Model T goes a long way in explaining why they’re so much more fun to collect.
“It is a labor of love,” Myers said. “What you’d get if you tried to sell it compared to what you might put into it probably isn’t very much.”
Myers said a Model A with a fresh paint job in generally good condition — the century-old vehicles apparently hold up very well — will cost somewhere around $18,000 and $20,000. It’s much less for one that needs a lot of work.
Considering they originally sold for $850 — Henry Ford’s goal was to make cars that were affordable to everyone — shelling out a few grand for a Model A now isn’t too bad. According to www.dollartimes.com, $850 in 1930 would be about $15,000 now, meaning Ford really was selling the cars on the cheap.
For the enthusiasts who have them now, part of the draw is their simplicity. As Myers pointed out, the Model A has a four-cylinder engine, and there’s not a lot to them, inside or out.
“They’re relatively easy to maintain,” he said. “I’m not a mechanic; I’m a retired teacher. I can maintain this car. But you can’t just take it to a Valvoline instant oil change. They don’t know what they’re looking at. Because they’re 100-year-old cars, it’s not the usual stuff today’s mechanics are trained on.”
And if there’s a problem that a Model A owner can’t solve? Do what everyone else does in every other situation.
“You’ve gotta like YouTube,” Myers said. “They’ve taken the time to record the things they do. You never know for sure if that’s a good thing, what the guy on YouTube is telling you. That’s where the Model A Club comes in. These are guys that, like myself, have done the work. They can say, ‘This guy’s good’ or ‘This guy’s not good.’”
Myers, who has two Model As, a Tudor (Henry Ford’s play on two-door) and a convertible Roadster, said he drives his 10 or 12 times a year. His Tudor can travel 35-45 mph, so a trip to Wooster for the Massillon resident would be maybe 15 minutes longer than were he to take a more late-model vehicle.
Even being a Model A enthusiast, Myers still gets excited when he sees somebody else out on the road with one. The reaction for anyone is similar to seeing the Goodyear blimp fly by. You just don’t see it that often.
“I’m always like, ‘Oh, look at that guy,’” he said. “There are so many variations. There are two-door and four-door. There’s the Roadster, the Coop, so many variations on them.”
There are clubs for all sorts of cars now, from Mercedes, to Corvettes, to Mini Coopers. While it’s tough to imagine millions of any of those cars still being around a century from now, Myers said enthusiasts can always surprise.
“I think it’s all a matter of how well people take care of what they’ve got and whether or not that interest is there,” he said. “People still have horses, and how long ago were we riding horses?”
Anyone with a Model A is encouraged to join the club. For more information visit the Mohican chapter of the Penn-Ohio Model A Club on Facebook or email bleppo1976@gmail.com. Meetings are monthly. Other information is available at www.modelaclub.com.