The racer shown below is made from a 1930 Model A just like mine. It showed up at our annual start up party. The start up party is an effort by our club members to start an A which has not run for a long time. We have succeeded every year for the last 25 years.
Tom, a friend, recently completed building a 1930’s bobtailed racer from Model A parts. It is really nice. It started in a third Model A Club member’s garage. Leonard N, the third member, passed away about a year ago from a terrible auto crash. He was T-boned at an intersection while driving his modern car. He died a few days after the accident. When he died there were Model A parts all over his garage floor. Leonard’s brother sold the parts to Tom and Tom decided to build a bobtailed racer out of them. The racers were a big thing back in the 30’s. As you can see Tom, seated in his new ride, did a great job and I told him yesterday I thought I caught a glimpse of Leonard smiling.
Lloyd, a friend I work out with at the gym converted a Model A like mine shown below into a gorgeous red Hot Rod which he subsequently sold. The good news is he got $100,000 for the car and the bad news is he had $250,000 in the car. It took him and two other rebuilders 3 years to complete. He spent 3 days in California with a wheel designer and had the wheels custom made. The engine is a Corvette engine purchased new through Weber Chevrolet. It arrived in a crate and was forwarded to a place in Arkansas that smooth bored the block plus other special alterations but most of the cost was in labor. I believe the Hot Rod is totally awesome but if the money was left of the equation I would not let him convert my Mode A into such a Hot Rod. That is how much I like my Model A which is only worth $15,000. He keeps asking me to bring my Model A to his house so he can introduce it to his plasma cutter – ain’t gonna happen.
The “Old Girl” kind of groaned when I started her up for this picture but all was well after she got warmed up a bit:
The below pics are from a Model A tour over the past weekend. A covey of “A’s” from our club made the roughly 100 mile trek to Elephant Rock State Park for a bit of leaf peeping and sight seeing. It was a very nice trip to the park plus a visit to some other points of interest. As far as I know all made the trip safely with only one minor mechanical blip. Dave H. had a radiator hose clamp loosen up a bit but a little water and elbow grease stopped that problem. All in all a great trip. Thank you Larry S. our trip leader.
Mike the owner of the below Penny-farthing stopped to see my Model A and was I glad. For years, I have been trying to get a picture of him as he whizzed by me in my neighborhood but never could I get my camera out and working fast enough. As expected he said the hard part was starting the ride and of course the hills because it has no gears and no coaster brake. You must pedal constantly and cannot coast.
One of our Model A club members recently passed away and as usual a squadron of Models A’s escorted the body to the cemetery and after the grave side service we left in mass. As we passed the gravesite where our friend was to be entombed we blew our “Ahooga” horns for a final farewell. A picture of our A’s at the funeral home is below
Well, the “old girl” threw her clutch. I heard a loud pop and a dreaded clunk and could not shift gears. I did a U-turn and headed for the barn at 10 MPH. A couple of Model A Club friends came over and gave their assessment. We pulled the rear end and transmission and the clutch is now in the hands of a rebuilder. The culprit was one or more of the clutch springs. See the bottom picture with the arrow to see where the springs are supposed to be. None were in place when we took the clutch out. Hopefully we will have her back on the road again soon.
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