Model T car club enjoys a tour

Even if they didn’t sound funny running down the road, the old-fashioned look of Model T Fords would cause rubbernecking. Their clumsy aerodynamics makes them plain cute!

“They don’t go too fast either,” said Larry Hart. “In fact in the old days you had to drive a Model T backwards up a hill because they didn’t have fuel pumps and the gas was gravity fed to the engine.”

Hart and his wife Sandy were among the 14 passengers and drivers who lined up their Model Ts and drove on to the ferry landing on Puget Island headed for Westport last Wednesday.

The On The Road Again Model T car club members were all headed to the Berry Patch restaurant in Westport for lunch. Hart said the club has nine members and all but one live on Puget Island.

“We just do this because it's fun,” he said, “Most of us are retired and love our old Model Ts.”

The clank and wiz of an old 1917 Model T touring sedan is the first thing you heard when it rolled on to the ferry. The car appeared to have driven straight out of the “Grapes of Wrath” novel by John Steinbeck. The paint appeared to have been put on with a rough brush and it seemed held together with baling wire, and high hopes.

“I got a cousin who started bringing me these parts to build this old car about 11 years ago," said John Pierson. “First he brought a fender, then a radiator, then a piece of frame. It took three pieces of Model T frame to build this car,” he said with a chuckle.

Pierson’s “Tin Lizzie” doesn’t have a starter and he started to crank his engine as the ferry approached the Westport dock. A crowed gathered around his car to watch.

Pierson started cranking the engine to start the car. One crank, two cranks, and the crowd groaned when it didn’t start on the third pull. “Don’t worry,” Pierson said with confidence, “I’m just gettin’ ‘er primed.” And with the forth crank the car idled to life.

Some would say Henry Ford’s Model T changed society forever. There is no doubt the car is the transition point between horse-and-buggy and the mobile society we enjoy today using the automobile.

Model Ts were built on the world’s first moving assembly line and by 1927 Ford had produced more than 15 million of the little cars.

Hart's 1926 T has been restored and … well … updated, it has a Global Positioning System. “Well, really,” said Hart, “that's actually our speedometer. We really don’t go far enough to need a GPS.”

“Oh I don’t know about that,” chimed in Sandy. “North Dakota.”

“Oh yeah, we had it (the T) back in North Dakota last month and toured with some friends and another club,” said Hart.

Hart said Model Ts didn’t come with speedometers or gas gauges.

“Here’s the gas gauge,” he said, and reached down next to the driver’s seat and pulled out a wooden dip stick with gallon measurements notched across the surface. “This is it,” he said with a giggle.

Also known as “Flivvers,” Model Ts are surprisingly agile. Henry Ford built the first Ts out of Vanadium steel. The Vanadium allowed Ford to mold his cars into the unique shapes we see today. It also explains why so many Ts remain on the road. Vanadium has rust resistant qualities.

"We’re the women of On The Road Again," said Vera Oman from Puget Island, “and we’re the important part of this group.”

Vera and her three companions all sat together in Pierson’s car and proudly agreed that they don’t help work on their husband’s cars.

“We just help wash them and listen to the guys talk about their old cars,” she said. “Really, we don’t go too far from home but it's always a lot of fun getting there in these cars.”