No T-Bird Was This . . . but the Model Was Special
Men of my age can be divided into two kinds--those who owned a Model T Ford and those who were denied that challenging experience.
A man never forgets his first Model T. It was a car that brought out the best in men, or boys, compelling them to learn its idiosyncratic mechanics and drawing them forth into heroic adventures of the road.
I had a 1922 Model T coupe. But I bought it in 1935. So it was 13 years old when I drove it off a used-car lot on South Figueroa, for $22. Like most Model Ts, it was black. It was high off the ground, and shaped something like an 18th-Century sedan chair.
I was at that time a reporter for the March Field Courier, a newspaper that served all 36 Southern California camps of the Civilian Conservation Corps, and I drove that car all over our southern mountain ranges, going from camp to camp for news. I had the paper’s logo pasted on the windshield. I was a dashing fellow in my press car.
It is hard to restrain a Model T owner from telling some story of exhilarating hardship on the road, some foolhardy excursion undertaken in the most inauspicious circumstances. And the car itself is always the hero.
Robert Taylor of Tustin recalls a trip he and his brother Ray made through the desert to Phoenix in their hopped-up 1918 Model T back in 1927. Among numerous other improvements they had installed a new carburetor, an extra gas tank and a Claxon horn.
They packed the car with food, water, oil, tire patches, inner tubes, a tire casing, a pump and other tools, and pooled their life savings--$26. They set out at 4:30 a.m., taking Western Avenue to the Coast Highway and heading south for Tijuana. (They wanted to say they had been in Mexico.)
They drove on to Calexico and then headed through the desert toward Yuma. Those who did not live in that era must realize that the roads in the Southwest were primitive, gas stations were a day apart, and one might travel for hours without meeting a car coming in the other direction.
They camped that night in Yuma. Next morning they learned that the only road to Phoenix began with the notorious Plank Road, a road made of railroad ties chained together and stretched over the sand dunes for miles. Every mile or so a widened section allowed cars to pull out or pass. They met only one car: a party from Philadelphia who were too inept to back up to a pull-out place. The boys did it for them.
When the Plank Road over the sand dunes ended, they camped out a night, then followed a narrow, lonely desert road into Painted Rocks, Gila Bend and finally Phoenix. They camped out of town in a grove of trees by a cool, clear stream, then set out the next morning for home through Wickenburg, Aguila, Wenden, Salome and Quartzsite, where they had a harrowing near-tragedy.
A fallen wooden arrow sign said MINE. They followed the rutted road about a mile and came to an old mining shack beside a pit about seven feet across. They couldn’t see the bottom. An old wooden ladder hung down into the pit. Bob decided to see where it led. He climbed down about 15 rungs, brushing off spider webs; then a rung broke under his feet. He hung by his hands, bicycling helplessly in the dark.
“I began to gasp for breath and was so frightened that I could hardly be heard. Ray was up above yelling down. ‘Can’t you hear me? Are you OK?’ I was now in a state of semi-shock. And then I heard Ray say, ‘I’ll get the sash cord and tie it to the axle and drop it down to you!’
“What seemed like hours later Ray dropped down the sash cord. I tied it to my waist with some difficulty, and between Ray, the car and me, I was able to climb back, up and out.”
I contemplated an even more perilous trip. I was going to drive my Model T down the Baja peninsula, all the way to La Paz. There was no road at all. Fortunately, the car died on the way to San Bernardino and I sold it for $4.
