I’m writing a story about an American family during the Great Depression. They’re not well off, but for plot purposes, they need to own a convertible. I’ve tried Googling this information without success, but did Ford or some other company build these during the 1920’s, so they could own an old one? (Or at least a car without a roof, if that existed.)
I appreciate any help.
1920s Automobiles on Wikipedia. Just click through until you find one that you like the best for the purposes of the story.
20s cars are cool, all old cars are cool, but for my money there’s no cooler era than the 1940s. No way. There are plenty of amazing beautiful cars from other decades, but altogether, the 1940s are tops, for me.
Give them an old Ford Model T touring car. Fifteen million Model Ts were built between 1908 & '24 with the last one rolling off the line in '27. Cheap and easy to maintain plus, being so common, easy to find spare parts for.
Correction: Ten million; the fifteen millionth was in '27.
“Riding around in a Stutz Bearcat, Jim
Yeah, you know those were different times…”
Seconded. A Model T is ideal because it’s going to be one of the less expensive cars, and will be fairly affordable with respect to maintenance and repair costs.
If they aren’t that well off, then I can picture them having purchased the car before the depression hit, and they would have been very reluctant to sell it during the depression because they would have known that they could not afford a new one to replace it.
They would have also been doing anything they could to save on maintenance costs for it, like having someone in the family do the basic maintenance like oil changes. And they would have kept patching the tires instead of buying new ones if they got a flat.
The automobile repair industry actually grew pretty well during the depression, mostly because everyone was hanging on to their cars as long as possible. If the family didn’t have anyone mechanical who could take care of maintenance and had to take the car to a shop, you might like to have the shop owner / mechanic comment about how his business is doing well even though so many other businesses are struggling.
Car manufacturers were struggling, and were constantly coming out with new whiz-bang features to try to tempt buyers into getting rid of that old car and buying a new one. Many fairly luxurious cars were produced that were sold with very thin profit margins. These newer cars would have made the Model T seem old and clunky by comparison.
The Model T is actually a pretty rugged little car. It’s not exactly a speed demon, but it can handle rough roads surprisingly well. After all, it was designed long before the U.S. had good roads everywhere.
It may not make much of a difference for your story, but the controls on a Model T aren’t the same as those of a modern car. Cadillac created the standard layout that we use today, and Ford didn’t adopt it until the Model A.
Another issue is that the Model T was originally a crank starter, but later models had an electric start. If the electric motor burned out or the starting system had some kind of issue, you could still crank start it, but you have to be very careful cranking a Model T. If the engine backfired while you were trying to start it, and you were holding the crank with your right hand, it could very easily break your hand or wrist.
I’m sure there were some families that suffered with the crank start instead of paying a shop to fix the electric start during the depression, just to save money.
I did a little poking around on youtube and you may find these interesting:
How to Start a “Model T” Ford
Henry Ford was extremely reluctant to change his T, his perfect car. It nearly an entire decade but Edsel finally convinced Henry that it was time to move on. They had to innovate or get left behind. Henry & Edsel collaborated on a project which ultimately brought back a name that the company hadn’t used in 23 years: the Model A.
Without a doubt the Model T Touring Car.
HOWEVER, and this is an aside, Edsel Ford designed the most beautiful car of its era with the Model A. Yes, a basic Everyman car. The kid had a good eye.
The Bugatti Royale was released the same year as the Model A, so I’m gonna have to, personally, disagree with you on that score. Italy will always be #1 when it comes to mastery of automotive design.
[quote=“engineer_comp_geek, post:6, topic:814014”]
…How to Start a “Model T” Ford
I agree that a T is the car your protagonists ought to be driving. My sister and I took a class once on driving a T, and I wrote it up: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=826185
Great grandpa hooked up a rig where he could plow his fields with his model t …and was known to use it as a tractor… Grandma learned to drive when she was 13 ,by toolin around n the fields
Funny thing was she was only 1 of 5 women who knew how to drive in the county at the time
It was a point of pride that she knew how to drive a model t …
Thanks for all your help. I hadn’t realized that a Model T could be a convertible!
Convertible is a relatively modern term. In the 1920’s the term was ‘roadster’ or ‘phaeton’ for a 2 or 4+ seater.
Like with the VW Beetle, the Model T became so popular that aftermarket kits started popping up so they’d at least look different.
To be clear, a hard top cost more in the Model T era, they base models were all “convertibles” in the modern usage of the word.
A roadster with 2 doors, or a touring with 4 doors will be the most common models.
Sedans and Coupes with hard tops cost almost twice as much as the base models, but they did come with the self-starter and demountable rims.