Ford Model T
by David Finlay (15 July 2011)
Although Ford started producing its Model T in the US back in 1908, 2011 is the centenary year of Model T production in Britain. Since I am British myself, this seems as good a year as any to have my first experience of driving one.
The car I've been given is a comparitive youngster, having been built in 1912 at Trafford Park, in a factory built on what used to be the estate of a nobleman who sold it because he was fed up of watching large boats wander past on the Manchester Ship Canal. It's part of Ford's magnificent Heritage Collection (and nearly the oldest car in it, beaten only by a US-built 1910 Model T) and it's rather wonderful, though also rather scary.
The reason for the scariness becomes apparent when someone tries to explain what the pedals are for. There are three of them, and it's easy to deceive yourself that they represent, reading from right to left, the accelerator, brake and clutch. Well, if you're going to start applying your modern-day sensibilities to the Model T you might as well give up now, because in fact none of the pedals does what you think it does.
This is because the Model T has what is known as an epicyclic gearbox. Normally there are few things I like better than researching technical stuff and then writing about it, but I've got this far in life without knowing how an epicyclic gearbox works and see no reason to adopt a new policy now, so let's skip that bit and accept that the pedal on the left selects either of the two forward gears (with a proviso which will be revealed shortly), the one in the middle selects reverse, and the one on the right is a brake.
Another brake is controlled by a lever to your right, and this lever also allows you, if you push it as far forward as it will go, to select high gear with . . . remember, class? . . . yes, the pedal on the left. The accelerator is a stalk on the steering column, and the steering wheel itself - you may by now be as relieved to learn as I was - is used to steer the car and has no other function except perhaps to hold on to for moral support.
And, frankly, I need all the moral support I can get, particularly because the sensation of speed in this thing is unbelievable. Its 2.9-litre engine may produce a maximum of only 20bhp (if you've ever wondered what the term "unstressed" means in the context of engines, you know now) but the Model T weighs only about two-thirds as much as a Ford Ka, so it fairly leaps away from a standstill.
There doesn't seem to be any way of making this process smoother, and my general feeling of alarm and concern is not helped by the high seating position and the lack of very much between me and the outside world.
Since this is what it's like in low gear, I'm not especially minded to investigate high gear, but there comes a point when I have to. Remember I said that the pedal on the left allows you to choose between the two? Well, it does, but in order to stay in low gear you have to keep pressing it down. There are two problems with this: first, it's very heavily sprung, and second, it transfers every single vibration of the car straight into your leg. After about half a minute of this, my thigh feels like it's on fire and I can't see.
So, under instructions from the nice man from the Heritage Centre (without whom I would long since have expired among the flaming wreckage of what was once one of the finest cars in his collection), I release the pedal a bit, push the handbrake lever forward and then release the pedal some more.
I think. Something like that, anyway. Don't quote me.
The point is that the Model T now races on even more quickly - it will eventually exceed 40mph if I let it, which is not going to happen - but no longer seems to be trying to shake me apart.
The rest of a short but very memorable run passes without incident. I don't even have to reverse into the car's designated parking spot because the man from the Heritage Centre takes over at that point - a wise move. I am delighted to have driven it, even if only forwards, and would love to have another go one day, though I'm sure that almost the entire process would have to be explained to me once again before I did: it's very foreign to me, and although I know it would eventually become intuitive I find it difficult to imagine that happening.
And yet over 16 million Model Ts were sold, and their customers must have coped. I am suitably humbled, and at the same time delighted that I have at last experienced what may be the single most important car in history.
