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Old 07-23-2018, 12:08 AM   #17
Marshall V. Daut
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Davenport, Iowa
Posts: 2,127
Default Re: Henry ford drives off in a ford model a

I'll see if I can find the issue with the story in it. It's been a long time since I read it (many times over the years), but as I recall, the author was a student/trainee in one of Henry Ford's classes that taught vocational automotive subjects. This was long after the Model A ceased production. He happened to look out of the classroom window and noticed his car was missing from its parking place. The student rushed outside and found a security guard to report his stolen car. That's when the guard reassured him that his car had not been stolen, merely borrowed by Henry Ford, the "Old Man" as the guard called him. Henry saw the Model A in the parking lot and wanted to check how the Model A ran. This was during the Great Depression, so the student's main concern was that he had very little gas in the tank and no money to replace what gasoline Henry used up. He watched helplessly as Henry hotlapped the test track up and down for a couple passes, measuring the top speed attained each way. The rest of the story has been told in previous postings in this thread. The happy ending is that Henry gave the student a voucher for a full tank of company gas. End of story.
As an adult, the student wrote this article for one of the national Model A club magazines, which I am pretty sure was MARC's "Model A News". Rather than continuing to cast aspersions on those who have heard the story or recall the article, let's wait until I or someone else can locate the issue to verify what has been posted here. If some people here then wish to still dismiss the story as urban legend rather than accept the written memory of this student, 'can't do much about that. The sun will still come up tomorrow no matter whether the story is believed or not.
Marshall
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