54-A Business Coupe

[Bob Bidonde]

I am making a slide presentation about the 1928-'29 54-A Business Coupe.The 54-A was originally sold in 3 versions: 1928 only with a black artificial leather top (no landau irons & no oval windows); 1929 only with a black artificial leather top & landau irons (no oval windows); 1929 only with a black artificial leather top & with oval windows (no landau irons). All 3 versions have a trunk (no rumble seat).
I need & will much appreciate side view pictures of all three versions to use in the slide.

[LeonardS]

I just sold this Business Coupe a few weeks ago.

[Bob Bidonde]

Thank you LeonardS. Your 54-A is a beauty.

[Marshall V. Daut]

Bob -
Will this article I wrote for "The Restorer" help?
Marshall

[mercman from oz]

[ThirstyThirty]

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Originally Posted by LeonardS

I just sold this Business Coupe a few weeks ago.

Nice! really like the enlarged pix! Top looks great! I can just see the businessman driving on home after another day dealing with all the many things of business a businessman might have to contend to... back in the 28/29 era of the American economy!

Thanks for sharing.

[Bleedblue4life]

According to the brown book landau irons were available as a dealer installed accessory for the 28, not factory installed. All 29s had the oval window.

[Brad in Germany]

From an era Czechoslovakian Ford Model A sales brochure:




Brad in Maryland




.

[P.S.]

I have a 29 business coupe with the oval windows coming up
for sale. Older restoration still holding up well. Will get any photo angles you want. Just let me know.

[dlshady]

Originally Posted by Marshall V. Daut

Bob -
Will this article I wrote for "The Restorer" help?
Marshall

Marshall, do you recall what issue that article was in?

[Russ B]

In 1963, a friend of my dad’s was ready to give me an oval window. Stupidly, I passed on it.regrets for years.

[Marshall V. Daut]

"Marshall, do you recall what issue that article was in?"

dlshady -
It appeared in the November/December, 2000 issue.

M.

[rotorwrench]

From the book "The Ford Model A As Henry Built It" by George DeAngeles, Ed Francis, & Leslie Henry, the landau bars were offered as an accessory item after August of 1928 for dealer installation or what ever the customer wanted to do with them but I've never seen a factory photo of a business coupe with landau bars installed. The rumble seat installation was also available as a dealer installed accessory. They were basically just a soft top coupe. No movable back light curtain or rumble seat. In early 1929, the oval quarter windows became the norm.

If a person wanted to convert a Business Coupe to a Sport Coupe then it would not be very difficult if the parts were available during the build up process.

[BlueSunoco]

Originally Posted by Marshall V. Daut

Bob -
Will this article I wrote for "The Restorer" help?
Marshall

Norm was a great guy! WWII vet part of the Greatest Generation (Until the Vietnam vets came along)


Very knowledgeable. Neat story behind that car.

[dlshady]

Originally Posted by Marshall V. Daut

"Marshall, do you recall what issue that article was in?"

dlshady -
It appeared in the November/December, 2000 issue.

M.

Thank you! I'll dig that one out tonight and read the article.

[Bob Bidonde]

Marshall & others. Thanks for your responses.

[Marshall V. Daut]

"Norm was a great guy! WWII vet part of the Greatest Generation"

I purchased my first Model A parts from Norm in 1966 when the 1931 Coupe I had bought that very day had a flat tire - with an even worse flat spare tire. The friend I was with owned two Model A's and later became my mentor - of sorts. Anyway, we left the coupe sitting beside the road and borrowed my mother's car so that my friend and I could go across town to Norm's Antique Auto Supply where I met Norm. He seemed like an old man to me at the time, but he was only 41!!! (My, how our perceptions of age change as we age!) I bought a 19" wheel with a serviceable tire for $25, as I recall, and I was back driving the coupe an hour later. Over the next 50 years whenever I visited Davenport from Phoenix, I always made it a point to visit Norm at his shop at Five Points. It was an old rundown two-story house covered with brown tarpaper, but I loved going there - it always looked the same year after year, stuffed to the rafters with parts from all kinds of antique cars. Nothing changed since I first saw the place in 1966, not even the posters and photos on the walls. Time stood still inside that building while I grew older and older. Norm and I remained friends until his passing in 2013 (?). The building was then torn down and is now a used car lot. I sure miss that old time capsule of antique car parts!
By the way, after Norm's passing, one of his daughters called me and asked if I was interested in buying Norm's Business Coupe, the subject of my "Restorer" article. Like a darned fool, I declined, citing as a reason too many antique cars in our carriage house as it was. Over the years since then I have often wished I had sold one and made room for Norm's coupe.
Marshall

[Benson]

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