Penn is sorely tempted (again) to get back into a vintage car – something more in keeping with his advancing years
John Castle’s love affair with Henry’s great Model A has been handsomely requited. Over the last 40 or so years he has owned seven examples, ranging from his first one bought when he’d just left school in 1965 to this, his latest aquisition.
His first one was a 1928 Tudor. It was later sold to Raynton J Hastie, who painted it pink, called it ‘The Pink Pussycat’, and drove it in the ‘Student Procesh’ that year – until he was told to go away. Raynton (I have a spelling uncertainty here) was a very colourful character whose name was (allegedly) synonymous with Auckland’s carnal industry. A Tudor is a two-door sedan seating four to five people, and typically has fold-down front seats allowing access to the rear. There were also a number of other bodies fitted – all of them ex-factory – including roadster pick-up trucklets.
Next, John owned a 1930 Phaeton, a convertible four-door tourer. He was getting quite bold by now, and confesses that he fitted a flathead V8 into this car. That’s not difficult, because Henry did the same thing as a factory model. Today the purist in John recoils from that admission, and he wouldn’t really want me to share that with readers. Oops!
He sold the 1930 Phaeton because he’d met a woman, and she didn’t like driving in it. His mother was onto her and deplored his actions, saying that the Phaeton should be kept. Mothers think they can always judge our girlfriends better than we can. I remember my mother similarly over-seeing what passed for my sex life, and pointing out that girls were like trams and there was one along every 10 minutes. As it turned out she was right, although there must be a tram drivers’ strike on lately because it’s been a long time between trams!
Well that woman’s gone, and so has that Model A. So John had a succession of ‘normal’ cars for a couple of years before going off for his Big OE to the UK, where every middle class Kiwi travelled around the world to mix with more Kiwis and do pretty much what they did here.
On his return after two years, once more that primal urge to have another Model A surfaced in his soul. Joining the Model A club, he got a Fordor in pieces which he restored and used for many years. Also along the way he bought a ’28 two-seater Roadster (that’s the one with the ‘dickie’ seat) which he restored.
He sold that when he bought a pick-up truck, rare and unusual. The problem was that it was difficult for John to sit in – long legs – he had it for about 20 years before he started thinking about a tourer again. He needed more socialisation space, more seats and more leg room, so when our featured car turned up on Trade Me the change-over process was straightforward. His pick-up truck netted $19K, which left him some change after he’d successfully bid 17K for this South Island car.
Ideal Vintage Toy
Seriously, this is a Model A that could well have been in continuous service since 1929. It might have been repainted at some stage a long time ago, and it’s clearly had on-going maintenance as required, but it’s in sound useable order. A prime example of Henry’s ruggedly simple workhorse. It would be an act of barbarity to ‘restore’ this car and lose that 73 years.
Hugely evocative is the driver’s door, John reckons they were specifically located to rest a man’s outer arm – in the theatrically casual pose we blokes like to convey – and this door has rested a lot of arms over the years because the paint is worn away, revealing various coats of primer surrounding the bare polished metal, now protected from the elements, I suspect, by human lanoline.
Double declutching the three-speed ’box is essential but, being typically American, there’s plenty of torque from the cast-iron flathead and gear changing is a minimalistic activity, because in top cog she gathers speed comfortably up any hill from almost any speed at the bottom – I loved it! A comfortable cruising speed is about 70kph and that would make for a very pleasant cruise to Wellington, from anywhere in NZ. Importantly, the mechanical brakes are able to lock the four drums at most speeds.
John tells me that 98 per cent of the Model As that came to NZ were Canadian-built, including the bodies. The Ford agent in NZ would import them and he thinks that they came here in wooden boxes, dismounted from their wheels and to some extent partially disassembled, depending on the body styling. Because the tourers were cheaper than the sedans, we imported a lot more of them, so probably the soft-tops and windscreens were partially or totally dismounted, thus lowering the profile.
This is a very useable car, it shows its age and is comfortable with it. It’s not the super Concours’d sort of car where the owner is in a constant fever of anxiety lest there be chips.
It’s a practical car for practical people backed by all the spares you could ever wish for. Best of all, it’s a lot of fun all for the price of a kitchen make-over.
Vintage in the 21st Century
My love affair with Model As is rather like my love affair with the sublimely sensual Brigitte Bardot – frustratingly unrequited, and due to our advancing years likely to remain that way!
However, you can easily aquire and restore a Model A, whereas the formerly wonderful BB is showing the attrition of time – mark you, on the up-side this should make her less choosy and therefore more likely to submit to my advances.
Ah well! I can only dream on about la Bardot, but the Model A is a serious contender for any of us who fancy a truly useable vintage car.
About when the delectable BB drove the world’s males to a frenzy of lust there were essentially only three kinds of cars recognised – status symbols, everyday drivers and vintage. In 1958 my everyday family car was a 1938 Morris 14/6, and it was too current to be classified as a collectable (it still isn’t 50 years later), and anyhow, officially collectables stopped in 1931. We saved up, paid £120 for our Morris and drove it as the family car, including emigrating from Wanganui to Kaikohe.
By the ’60s in post WWII New Zealand, many youngsters had a Model A as their vacuum cleaner (picks up all the fluff, get it?). ‘Proper’ everyday cars were a major expense – a man got married, bought a house, then a car, and then he could die having achieved life’s two great objectives. That doesn’t mean he kept one car for the rest of his life, it means that the car market was such that the initial capital expenditure was the big hurdle, after that you traded in or sold privately (at one stage you could make a substantial profit!) and then just added a quite small sum to your car capital and got a newer one. Fifty years have rolled by since then, our world is now choked with cars and categories of cars, and we habitually have as many cars as we can cram onto our property. We buy them out of the loose change.
This has diluted the vintage market considerably, because whilst men will always be car collectors, they’re now spread thinly over the much wider ranging collectab le market. That’s having its effects on the position occupied by the ‘vintage’ segment.
The implications are much more speculative downstream, as the demand for vintage cars continues to be diluted in the minds of the up and coming generations. Most of today’s teens will stare at a Model A in much the same way that they see their grannies – interesting but scarcely functional, let alone glamorous. Leaving aside hugely expensive WO Bentleys and such-like, this means that everyday vintagers are becoming economically viable if you have a hankering for a vintage toy, and the subject car in this article is a classic example of this trend.
The Model A
Personally, I believe that Henry Ford was the man who gave the world the automobile. Plenty of others contributed in many very important ways, but Henry was the genius who combined engineering talent with a remarkable organisational ability and a great grasp of marketing. Consequently, he sold 20,000,000 or so Model Ts and about 6,000,000 Model As. This latter shortfall in numbers simply reflected the speed with which he produced his next models, including the great flathead V8!
Anybody who can drive a manual car today and is used to conventional driving practices – such as those the Model A helped set in place – can drive a Model A. You can’t say that of the Model T, which requires driving techniques that are demanding.
In the Model A resides every convention of the basic motor car – effective steering, efficient brakes, a conventional gearbox, a starter motor and generator and a sturdy, torquey and foolproof motor. The Model A taught millions the fundamentals of motor car ownership and maintenance.
Even today I’d give a teenager (of any gender) interested in mechanicals a Model A to learn the fundamentals on. However, I also think that today’s teens would probably be insulted because, today, image is everything, and the Model A ranks way below the iPod as a status symbol.
Apart from being perfectly able to drive from Auckland to Wellington in comfort and style, the Model A also offers the huge advantage of readily available parts. Many bits are still being made as part of a thriving after-market industry.
Words & Photos: Penn McKay
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