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SPECIAL

Ford Territory

SPECIAL

Ford Territory

Model T Tour Celebrates History

Staff, Friday August 29, 2003.

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The convoy of 14 Model Ts, ranging in vintage from 1911 to 1927, will travel from Warwick Farm in Sydney along the coast to Southport in Queensland, before returning to Sydney along the New England Highway (see attached schedule).

Their epic journey, beginning Monday 1st September 2003, is expected to take around two weeks.

The tour plans to raise money for Camp Quality, a non-profit organisation that aims to bring happiness to the lives of children living with cancer.

The tour will also celebrate 30 years of the NSW chapter of the Model T Club of Australia.

Tour organiser Andrew Byrnes said the convoy planned to average about 50kmh during the trip.

?It?ll be a fairly leisurely pace, but all the vehicles are up to the journey. And the beauty of these types of vehicles is that they?re fairly simple to fix if anything does break,? he said.

The vehicles are all faithfully restored to mirror their original condition.

?The cars haven?t been modernised at all, so the journey will be pretty similar to how it would have been all those years ago, except the roads are obviously better,? he said.

The major ports of call along the way will include: Port Macquarie, Grafton, Southport, Ipswich, Tenterfield and Tamworth.

A special entrant in the tour is the 1915 Ford Model T Runabout owned by Queenslanders Gavin and Karen Pocock. The Pococks recently returned from the United States where they drove their vintage car in the "Model T Drive Across America" ? a 5000km journey from Los Angeles to Detroit, the birthplace of the Model T ? to celebrate the 100th birthday of Ford Motor Company.

To arrange photo opportunities and interviews at locations along the tour route, please contact Geoff Smith from the Model T Club of Australia on 0405-224-215.

MODEL T TOUR ITINERARY

More History on the Model T

The Ubiquitous Model T

Henry Ford released his Model T in 1908 and it became an immediate success because it offered reliable, simple motoring for a fraction of the cost of other cars at the time. The car increased in popularity, especially after 1913 when the famous Ford moving assembly line was introduced. This innovation had a dramatic effect on production numbers and costs and Henry Ford capitalised on the fact that he could build and sell Model Ts way below his competitors.

The Model T was simplicity itself. It was designed that way so that local farmers and blacksmiths could repair it with basic tools. It was often said that all you needed was a pair of pliers, a hammer and a coil of wire to keep a Model T on the road. With its narrow wheels, high ground clearance and three-point suspension it could literally go anywhere and was the favourite car for settlers and explorers opening up the outback.

The Model T soon became a familiar sight on Australia?s roads after the 1908 introduction. They were initially imported by separate distributors in each State and assembled with local bodies that varied in style from one distributor to another.

In 1925 Ford Motor Company of Australia was formed and production of the Model T began in a disused wool store in Geelong while the huge new factory was being built on the outskirts of that city.

The Australian model was rather unique in that, unlike the later US Model T (that was available in any colour as long as it was black because the black paint dried quicker), it was available in a large variety of colours.

Some very famous people used Ford Model Ts in their exploits across Australia. Henry Birtles traversed thousands of miles of the outback in one and Hudson Fysh (later Sir Hudson and founder of Qantas) used a heavily laden Model T to map out the proposed air route from Longreach to Darwin.

So popular was the Model T that Ford Australia built a total of 29,000 between 1925 and 1928 ? an average of around 1,000 cars and trucks a month! Body styles ranged from the standard open top 4-door family tourer to the Deluxe Tourer favoured by doctors and businessmen, to the sporty Runabout, 2-seater beloved by the smart set, and the Deluxe Runabout for the wealthier ?man about town? and his partner.

As well as passenger cars there was a Light Delivery ? the forerunner of the ute and a one-ton chassis that became the preferred vehicle for farmers, tradesmen and carriers. In those days you could buy a Model T chassis and have the body built to your own specifications. This led to many one-off styles and lots of special buses, station wagon-type bodies, covered vans, ambulances and petrol delivery tankers.

What made the Model T so special? Probably its greatest feature, after the low price, was its absolute reliability. The rugged, 4-cylinder engine had a magneto ignition system built into the flywheel, the transmission was a simple planetary gear system driving the rear wheels through a completely enclosed tail shaft and the suspension consisted of simple transverse springs. The chassis and many of the engine parts were made from tough Vanadium steel.

The Model T, of which 15,000,000 were made between 1908 and 1927, was available in almost every country in the world. It was usually the first new car people owned and it provided people all over the world with a freedom of movement previously unheard of and, until then, totally unaffordable.

Henry?s Model T literally put the world on wheels and set Ford Motor Company on the road to becoming one of the world?s greatest motor manufacturers.

For further information, please contact:
Ford Australia Communications
Phone: 03-9359 8491

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