Driving Model T requires preparation

Someone’s inability to drive a Model T is how Les Stafford found Ethel, his 1925 black Model T Ford.

“When I bought that Model T, I knew absolutely nothing about it,” Stafford said.

The Model T Ford celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, the first low-priced car that brought motoring to the masses.

On Oct. 1, 1908, the first Model T Ford was assembled at the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit.

Over the next 19 years, Ford built more than 15 million cars with a Model T engine. It was the longest run of any single model apart from the Volkswagen Beetle and changed America. When the last Model T was built in 1927, Ford produced an automobile every 24 seconds.

Stafford purchased Ethel in 2000 from a gentleman in Tucson who had difficulty driving it. Ethel came to Tucson from Indiana, where another man was working to restore her.

“It just seems an appropriate name for a vintage lady,” Mary Stafford, Les’ wife who named the car, said.

Stafford finished restoring the car, which included installing a two-speed axle and a Rocky Mountain Brake System. Two other Model T owners in the area, Bob Pisaneschi and Merle Sprott, who have since passed away, helped Stafford learn the ropes of the Model T. He estimated it took him about five minutes to learn how to drive it, but it does require the use of both legs and both arms to do so.

“It’s a novelty to take it out and ride around in it,” Stafford said.

Stafford’s Model T can reach speeds of 40 mph. Stafford said that if a driver pushes the car to go faster, it’s possible to shake the car apart because of the way Henry Ford built the car — it has no balance.

The gas tank holds six gallons, and the cheaper the gas the better.

“It would run good on kerosene,” he said. “You can go a long way on six gallons in this thing.”

However, there’s no gauge to tell the driver how much gas is left. In fact, there are only two gauges on the vehicle. One inside the car is the dashboard; it shows the amperage for the ignition system, which indicates if the generator is charging or not. The second gauge is on the hood of the car where a hood ornament would be. It indicates the temperature in the radiator so the engine doesn’t overheat.

Stafford drives the Model T in local parades, including Sierra Vista’s Christmas Parade. The couple also belongs to the Tucson Touring T’s Model T Club.

Henry Ford is often quoted as saying he wanted to build a car for the masses. Another quote often attributed to Ford is that the public could buy a Model T “in any color, as long as it’s black,” but that has never been confirmed. The application of the moving assembly line came in late 1913.

Ford also applied a business model that had rarely been used before, to lower a product’s cost and the company’s profit margin to increase sales volume.

The introduction of the Model T transformed the nation’s cities by allowing people to move farther away from the city and into the suburbs. The use of the car by rural Americans even brought about the centralized school system instead of the one-room schoolhouse.

The Model T remains an iconic figure of American history to this day that is remembered in poems, songs and movies.