What is your Model A/AA history?

[Steve Plucker]

If you know the history of your Model A/AA Ford, starting with the assembly plant it came from, would like to hear it.

I was kind of lucky to have the original title as when bought in February/March 1929 by a lady in La Grande, Oregon from the Perkins Motor Company. She had it up untill 1969 when she sold it to a fellow in La Grande. He kept it up till 1983 when he sold it to another fellow in Joseph, Oregon. That guy then sold it to a fellow in Milton-Freewater, Oregon about 2005. And in 2011, I bought it.

The one thing that is interesting about this car is that it was assembled at the Seattle Assembly Plant. Now La Grande is (was) out of the sales area of Seattle and is (was) in the Portland, Oregon sales area.

So...just how did it get to La Grande only to be bought by the original owner?

The title and the frame/engine number are the same (the original engine, a February 13, 1929 stamping, was replaced with one which was stamped about a month later for some unknown reason).

Engine left Dearborn and was sent to Seattle and about 2 weeks later or there about, the Tudor was assembled. Just where it went from there is not known.

There are several senarios that could of happened to get that car down to La Grande from Seattle. It is a guessing game at this point and sure wish the original dealer records were still around.

I know that the lady wanted a Tudor...none were to be had in La Grande or any other place around the La Grande area or one would of been gotten there.

Walla Walla, WA (or even Clarkston, WA) was the closest and it may have had a Tudor in it's showroom for sale. Since Walla Walla (and Clarkston) was in the Seattle Assembly Plant's sales area, it would stand for reason why one was there.

So, the dealer in La Grande made a call to the dealer in Walla Walla (or maybe even Clarkston, WA) and struck up a deal...The car was then either shipped by train to La Grande or someone from the dealer in La Grande came up and got it and drove it back to the Perkins Motor Company to give to the lady or someone from Walla Walla (or Clarkston) drove it down to La Grande.

Just who the heck knows!

Yep...the original records here would be an absolute gold mine!

Pluck

[Gold Digger]

I've got an original 1930 AA Railway Express Agency truck that has only changed hands 3 times in it's life. Still runs like a top and pretty darn slick but needs paint as the original is pealing. I have the original title that came with it new. Sold in California and went to Sparks, Nevada and served most of it's working days there until 1950 when a telephone pole fell across the hood and it was sold to the man I got it from a few years ago. He used it all these years until I bought it and now I use it to haul lumber on and what ever.

[SeaSlugs]

My 29 AA was supposedly started off life in Pontiac IL delivering milk. Somehow my great grandpa bought it and used it for a long time on the farm just 20 min away. Just about every farmer fix imaginable had been done to keep it going. The last plates on it were from 51 and was told it was used around the farm for awhile afterwards. I do have a 1967 title for it (when my great grandpa passed away and my grandpa got it) and a WW2 certificate of war necessity for it. It says it was origionally a grain box according to that title. How do we look up plant assembly codes?

Kinda eerie knowing when i hauled the frame and cab back to my moms house its the fastest that trucks probably ever went (55-60mph) and farthest its been in its whole life...

[Steve Plucker]

Originally Posted by SeaSlugs

My 29 AA was supposedly started off life in Pontiac IL delivering milk. Somehow my great grandpa bought it and used it for a long time on the farm just 20 min away. Just about every farmer fix imaginable had been done to keep it going. The last plates on it were from 51 and was told it was used around the farm for awhile afterwards. I do have a 1967 title for it (when my great grandpa passed away and my grandpa got it) and a WW2 certificate of war necessity for it. It says it was origionally a grain box according to that title. How do we look up plant assembly codes?

Kinda eerie knowing when i hauled the frame and cab back to my moms house its the fastest that trucks probably ever went (55-60mph) and farthest its been in its whole life...

Go to my website www.plucks329s.org then go to Additional Studies...then go to Letters, Numbers and Codes...there you will learn all about it.

Pluck

[29ModelA]

Mine was built in the LA assembly plant and spent it's entire life in the LA area. When the gentleman died his niece inherited it. The car was transported from CA to MI and put into a barn, the transfer of registration was signed but the car was never titled or plated in MI and she said they never drove it here. The Niece's husband tore it apart to restore, but never got further than disassembly.

The car sat that way for about 40 years, and that is when I found it and talked her into selling it. I have the original registration transfer from the estate to her, and original photo's from the 60's that show the car in the same patina.

She always said her uncle was the original owner, which I guess is possible as she was in her mid/late 70's and he died in the late 1960's or so.

[Roadster Rich]

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My 30 Standard Roadster was purchased by a mansion owner (Mrs.Hawkes) in Bar Harbor, Maine in July of 1930. I don't know where it was assembled but the engine number is from May 1930. She purchased this for a niece to drive in Maine when she came to visit for a month. My grandfather was the estate caretaker and lived above the garage (7 cars stabled there). He moved it to the back of the garage and put it up on blocks after the niece left. Then in 1945 he was given the car by Mrs. Hawkes, when he asked if he could buy it. It had never been off the blocks since 1930. My dad used this through high school and college and then moved it to Vermont when he got his first job out of college. Left it in a field until 1964, when he worked with me on a project to restore/fix up. Never been out of my family hands since it was purchased. Also interesting that Mrs. Hawkes had it painted her estate car color of maroon on black. I think it is a much prettier color than the Ford Maroon and have kept it this color.

[mndodge]

I am not sure of the assembly plant it came from, but I do know that the 29 tudor sedan I have had its first home in New Richmond Wi.
It was originally bought by the guy that owned the hardware store there in town, I do not know all of the story, but I do know that the second owner who bought it also from New Richmond owned the Chevrolet dealership in town and it was called Johnson Motors. He had bought the car back in the 50's and his son told me that in the early sixties, his sister drove it to high school everyday and after she graduated they parked the car in one of the barns they had and there it sat until 2010 when I saw it for sale at a hot rod show / swap meet in Minneapolis, Mn. and it was all original and all there and all that was missing was the interior that the mice grabbed over the years, the four matching tires from the "Coast to Coast" hardware store were still on it and all holding air. I just kept thinking of someone getting ahold of it and chopping it up and only using the body and setting the rest out to rust.
I went to New Richmond the following weekend and picked it up and got to meet the father who was the second owner and signed over the title after telling the story.
Its funny to think how small of a world we live in......In 1994 I bought a new Chev pickup from a dealer in town and I wanted a certain color, they had to locate one and it ended up this Chev dealer in New Richmond Wi is the dealer they found it.....I remember asking them to remove the dealer stick on emblem as they prepped it to head out the door, makes me chuckle when I think about it.

[spdway1]

Must be another slow day in the Wheat Box?

[Great Lakes Greg]

My '29 Tudor was built at the Rouge Plant in early March (engine on the 5th., gas tank stamped on the 6th.). It was purchased new by Enos Wright, the Fire Chief of Litchfeild, Michigan. His widow sold it to Vic Ettein here in Jackson in 1965, and Vic sold it to my father in 1985. My dad died in 2007, and I became the caretaker and then eventual owner just this year. 84 years and never more than an hour from it's original home.

[SeaSlugs]

Originally Posted by mndodge

Its funny to think how small of a world we live in......In 1994 I bought a new Chev pickup from a dealer in town and I wanted a certain color, they had to locate one and it ended up this Chev dealer in New Richmond Wi is the dealer they found it.....I remember asking them to remove the dealer stick on emblem as they prepped it to head out the door, makes me chuckle when I think about it.

i HATE those dealer stickers and license plate thingys!

[pat in Santa Cruz]

My 150-B Station Wagon was assembled in Long Beach and shipped to Hawaii,where it lived until the early 80's when it was bought by a fellow in Redding, Ca. who started on the mechanicals, lost interest and sold it to a cabinet maker in Grants Pass, Ore. He had it finished in time to do a cross Canada tour by 1994. He drove it about 60,000 miles over the following 10 years. All that Oregon rain ruined the veneer and the finish and the mechanicals were all worn out. I bought it in 03, tore it completely down and re restored it to every nut and bolt.

My Slant was assembled in Richmond, Ca, shipped to Redding, Ca and sold to a couple who traded it in in 1932 for a V8. A mechanic at the Ford Garage there bought it, drove it to work until he sold it in the early 60's to a kid in town who shot another coat of the correct color nitrocellulose over the outside paint and re-upholstered it with a JC Whitney kit. He was shipped to Viet Nam, did not come back and his mother had it in her garage until 2004, when she sold it to a friend in Medford, Oregon. I saw it in the Portland MAFCA national meet parking lot in 2004. His wife convinced him he had too many cars and I bought it in 2005 with 72,000 original miles on it. After a year, I restored the running gear from bumper to bumper. The body has never been off the frame, it was always inside and is mostly original except for the re spray and that Whitney interior.

My AA was built in Long Beach, Ca, shipped to Modesto and sold by Frank Paradise Ford. I do not know who bought it or what it was used for. When I found it it had been a vegetable truck along hwy 99 in Madera. The back of the truck had been removed except for the floor, and the headboard and back were painted barn red, with a vegetable bed installed over the old flooring. It could have been a box van, a bottled water truck, or a soda truck, judging from the small bits that remained. It is a wooden C-cab, so it might have also been a dairy truck, as that is dairy country, but with black fenders and dark green cab I doubt that as most dairy trucks were white.

No clue where my pickup came from, as it is a 30 but had a 28 frame under it and it had been painted 6 times judging from the colors I sanded through. It now has a 30 frame under it and is andalucite blue.

[Dick Webber]

My 29 Tudor is also a mystery. I can't find factory origin information n it. It does have some strange numbers stamped on the right hand door sill plate. The cowl stamp is May 15, 1929 and the engine was built May 16 according to the number charts. I bought it in Appleton WI in 1961. Seems like the fellow I got it from brought it from Sheboygan WI in 1959. I wish I knew. . . .

[Steve Plucker]

Originally Posted by spdway1

Must be another slow day in the Wheat Box?

Not really...Just some frickin rain!

Pluck (with 4 days left and counting...providing no more rain and breakdowns!)

[Ray in La Mesa]

I pieced my '28 pickup together in the summer of '68 to drive temporarily till I got my '30 cabriolet restored, just now restoring the cabriolet- didn't figure it would be 45 years!. Bought my cabbie from Truly Nolan Pest Control in '68 also. All I knew was he was in Arizona/California and used old cars to advertise, parking them in gas stations. 25 years later while at a tour in Yuma, Az. I was talking to a fellow while looking at another cabbie and mentioned I had one with metallic blue paint and black vinal top. He asked if it was registered as a '31 coupe-- I got a chill down my spine because IT WAS! I said lets go to breakfast and finally learned some of the history of my A 25 years later. He was living in Ill. in the 50's and his job was transferred to Tucson,Az. He had a '31 coupe with a trashed body and needed to carry all his household belongings to Az. so took the body off, built a farm box and a tow bar and moved to Az. Once settled, he and a buddy decided to restore the A. They got the chassis done then went looking for a body. In a river bed on an indian reservation outside Tucson they found the cabriolet body buried in the sand,(that explains the bottom 4" of fiberglass around the whole body), brought it home and restored it, then sold it to Truly Nolan. I found at in a gas station in Ocean Beach, Ca. and the only pieces missing were the horn and deck lid handle. Sure wish I knew the rest of the story.

[Randy in Illinois]

SeaSlugs, I like those stick-on things and license plat dodads dealers put on cars. It's a way of documenting where your old car was delivered. part of your old cars history/patina, they are also collectible.

[SeaSlugs]

Originally Posted by Randy in Illinois

SeaSlugs, I like those stick-on things and license plat dodads dealers put on cars. It's a way of documenting where your old car was delivered. part of your old cars history/patina, they are also collectible.

oh dont mind me i do love the old ones but HATE them on new cars that will never be worth anything.

plus if you travel its a dead giveaway your traveling in a modern car if it states the city the cars from so its usually a magnet for smash and grab theifs.