Happy Birthday: Fords Model A

Ancestry.com 07/22/2013 Ford sold its first Runabout Model A on July 13, 1903. After 110 years, Ford Motor Companys first vehicle boasts unquestionable iconic status today. But here are five juicy tidbits about the life and legacy of this legend that you may not have heard: 1. Fords original Model A had a later Ford twin. The 1903 Model A began a series of other models named in alphabetical order, from A to Fords famously popular Model T. But Ford skipped UZ in 1927, starting over again on a new model with their previously successful title of Model A. 2. Many standard features we now take for 1 Ford Model A 1903 (from Wikipedia Commons, granted were not even on the drawing board when the Model A came out. In fact, early ads for ShareAlike 3.) competing Model As focused on advanced new featureslike wheel-locking emergency brakes, 820 horsepower engines, and being able to seat five people. Other new features came much later: AC first emerged in the late 1930s, power windows in the 40s, and the first seatbelts in the 50s. 3. Affordability was an even bigger deal then than it is now. Early Model A Runabouts ranged in price from $800 to $2,500, costing comparatively about the same amount as we might expect to pay for a new car now (about $18,000$58,000 in todays dollars). But far fewer consumers in 1903 could afford such a luxury: the average salary for schoolteachers or lighthouse keepers, for example, was less than $600 a yeareven postal workers made more (about $1,000 a year). So, only the well-to-do with their inherited wealth or heftier salarieslike $6,000 a year for a state governorcould hope to ride in the latest motorized style. 4. Even in its infancy, Fords Model A faced fierce competition from other car manufacturers. In 1903 and 1904, Cadillac, Oldsmobile, and Winton also made Model As. In April 1903, before the Indy 500 existed, Oldsmobile challenged Cadillac to a race, each boasting that their runabout was the best. The Indianapolis News printed their two conflicting ads. One announced, Cadillac wins the day, when Oldsmobiles Carl Fisher initially backed out. But

2 Indianapolis News, April 7, 1903 (image courtesy of Newspapers.com).

Oldsmobile published a larger ad to call [Cadillacs] bluffs. According to Oldsmobiles side of the story, not only did their runabout win in its first race against Cadillacs, but after 78 miles, the Cadillac began to break down and eventually had to be pulled into Columbus by two Oldsmobiles. While Oldsmobile claimed the race proved that their Model A was the best runabout in the world, its been hard to compete with the popularity of Fords original. 5. Praises to Fords Model A werent just in black-and-white; theyve also been musical. Wil Ryder and the Ottawa County Bluegrass Band declared, I wouldnt trade it, Henry Ford made it, and he called it a Model A and boasted that all the girls are achin, asking to be taken for a ride in my Model A. But perhaps Oscar Ford and Riley Puckett made the boldest boast for Fords Model A in their 1929 song: Now, if you go to heaven, Ill give you all a tip, drive an old Ford cause its bound to make the trip. But if you go to torment, drive a Model A; ford around the devil, and youre bound to get away. Julie Ogborn