By ERIC C. RODENBERG
AntiqueWeek Associate Editor

RICHMOND, Ind. — The Ford Motor Co. is issuing another recall.
However, this recall has nothing to do with engineering shortcomings. It’s a happier occasion – the 100th anniversary of a phenomenon that changed the face of this nation, if not the world.
On July 21-28, the Model T Ford Club of America, based in nearby Centerville, will host a Centennial T Party at the Wayne County Fairgrounds in Richmond. Nearly 1,000 Model Ts of all years, shapes, sizes and forms are expected to converge upon the east-central Indiana town of about 40,000 (near I-70).

Throughout the week, there will be Model T driving tours, vintage fashion shows, a vintage baseball game, a vintage pre-World War I swap meet, Model T races at the nearby Winchester Speedway, a pre-1930 air show and much, much more.

For its part, Ford is sending in Ford Village, a mini-Henry Ford Museum display. Detroit will serve as a staging area, sending in their executives, historians and technicians to the event.

Arrangements are now being made to ferry in these executives and media representatives to the event in corporate aircraft, arriving at the south side Richmond airport.

The event is projected to pull in $6.4 million in revenue for the area, particularly a boon for antique shops on “antique alley,” that stretch of U.S. 40 that runs from Richmond to Indianapolis.
“There are things that are peculiar to Model T owners; for some reason they love ice cream – we have a lot of ice cream parties. And we love antique shops,” said Jay G. Klehfoth, CEO of the Model T Ford Club of America.

“This is going to be a huge, huge event,” he added. “We started thinking about this 10 years ago … then four years ago, we really got into it. The first thought was that it had to be done in Detroit.”
But, after further consideration, Detroit just didn’t sound like much “fun.” The Motor City, they decided, wasn’t conducive to slow-paced bucolic drives and ice cream socials.

“Then someone suggested we have it here,” Klehfoth, who also is a former Ford executive, said. “And I thought, where else can we find such a likely unchanged area from the years of the Model T? The area has quaint small towns, quiet back country roads, and an Amish community where we can do a little reminiscing as we pass a horse and buggy.”

Another reason to pull the celebration off in Wayne County, Ind., is the new Model T Ford Museum. During the past six months, the Model T Club has been quietly putting together a museum near I-70 between the towns of Centerville and Richmond. Opening only six months ago, the museum currently has more than 10 cars on display, everything from one of the first cars made on the moving assembly line to one of the last produced Model Ts. Although the display is small, it illustrates the versatility of the Model T between 1909 and 1927. On display is a coupe, touring car, World War I-era military ambulance, an early model Snowbird snowmobile, 1925 fire truck, dump truck and a 1926 dirt track racer.

All the cars are in original, running condition.

“This is rolling history,” said Klehfoth. “People see these and smile. There’s just so much nostalgic and history that goes with the car … the socio-economic-technical impact of this car is tremendous.
It changed the world, it was the car of the century. I would say it was one of the most important inventions, period; Edison’s invention of the light may be the most important, but Ford was not far behind.”

It is for no small reason that the Ford Model T was conferred the honor of “Car of the Century” by an international committee of experts in late 1999.

Although Henry Ford did not invent the automobile or the assembly line, he did change the world by producing cars that were affordable to nearly everyone. In 1909, the Model T was hand-produced, one auto at a time. Its cost was $850 new. By 1925, a Model T roadster would sell for $260, according to Klehfoth.

“What happened was, that Ford finally made it cheaper than buying and maintaining a horse,” he explained.

That was to change everything. At the turn of the 20th century, 94 percent of the population had never traveled 20 miles from where they were born, according to Klehfoth.

The idea of an assembly line came from a co-worker William C. Klann who had reported to Ford on a visit to the Chicago’s Union Stock Yards where he viewed a “disassembly” line where animals were cut apart as they moved along a conveyor.

By the end of 1913, Ford’s application of this moving assembly line had improved the speed of chassis assembly from 12 hours and eight minutes to one hour and 33 minutes. By 1927, the last year of the Model T, the company was producing an automobile every 24 seconds.

Also called the “Universal Car,” the basic design of the Model T changed little between 1908 and 1927. There were accessories that could be added, such as the “manifold cooker” where the traveling family (ala the Joads of Grapes of Wrath) could cook a stew underneath the Ford’s hood while traveling. “We do this a lot,” Klehfoth said. “It actually tastes pretty good.” He remembers advising one Model T chef to take “a couple more laps around the park” to get the chicken more tender.

Whether Henry Ford ever said that the buying public could have Model T Fords “in any color, so long as it’s black,” is debatable. Although the saying is true for the model years after 1913, earlier cars were available in green, red, blue and grey. In 1926 colors other than black were once again offered, in an attempt to increase sales.

During the 19 years that Henry Ford was changing the world, his company sold about 15 million cars. By the 1920s, more than half of all cars in the world were Model Ts. These cars were not only made in the United States, but also 12 other countries.
About 500,000 of those cars are left today, according to Klehfoth. That’s not too bad, he said, considering that the country has seen two world wars and several scrap drives.

The Model Ts come in all size, shapes and forms. At the upcoming celebration, there will be Model T RVs, snowmobiles, town cars, roadsters and farm trucks.

“You could buy a Model T chassis from Ford, and then every town had a cabinet maker who could fashion the cab, truck bed or whatever,” Klehfoth said. “Henry Ford was a farmer and he wanted to make it simple. He wanted everything to be easy for people. Back in 1908, we didn’t have mechanics there were only blacksmiths … and it was made simple.

“The first models were designed to run on ethanol. The idea was that the farmer would brew up his own fuel with corn – he’d have something like a still – and provide his own fuel. Now days, you look back and everything is so complex that no one can work on them – you have to question what we have done to ourselves.”
Underscoring the simplicity of the Ford Model T is one of the contests at the 100-year celebration: a team of six is required to assemble a car from a sheet of car parts on the ground and drive it away. Total estimated time: 20 minutes.