Re: what was it like to buy a new model a?
I have talked to many old timers that have long since passed on, and the had said things were much more ruthless with the car dealers here in Washington state than it is now. I have a Fordex Survey Data book from 1928 that exploits all of the features that the Ford has over the competition, including the horse and buggy. Passenger car comparisons over the competition, comparison of repair labor charges, etc. They also listed what you can buy with the money save in your purchase of your new Ford over the next higher prices competition's car. . i.e. saved $535. With the savings you could buy radio set $50., vacuum cleaner $50., Silver set., 37.50, giving total $137.50 spent with still having a balance in the bank of $17.50 Price per pound comparison of the Ford Touring vs. other makes. Pound for pound, for the 1927 Ford represented the greatest value. Less weight per horse power results in easier work...Ford was 77 pounds / horse power; the Chevrolet was 86 lbs/ horse power. Selling point: an average of 50% of all cars in the U.S. were Fords. One example that stands out was the Chevrolet dealers with the backing of General Motors, would give the Ford owners an extra high trade in for their model T Ford, just to get the Fords off of the road. After taking in the Ford model T trade in, the Chevrolet dealers would take a sledge hammer to the side of the Ford engine block and destroy the car's engine. From there they would haul the Model T down to the river bank and roll them off over the river bank. Al Eikelberry, one of my old time neighbors said that he was able to salvage some of the traded in Fords off the river bank because the Chevrolet dealers didn't do a good enough job with their sledge hammers in trying to brake up the engine blocks. The reasoning of destroying the Fords was to remove the Fords from the local scene so that we would have a community of only Chevrolets. The Ford dealers were just a concerned about the percentage of Fords left on the streets of our community. Ford Motor Company required the Ford dealers to go around to the different parking lots, like outside of grocery store parking lots, employee parking lots, and other public parking lots and to take photographs of the percentage of Fords that could still be found in towns. Bergland Ford still had the photographs on file that were taken back in the 30's through 50's of the percentage of Fords that could still be found in our local population.
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