At a recent car show I had the opportunity to get up close to a 1930 Model A Ford. Almost 5 million Model A’s were built between 1927 and 1931. Amazingly, many thousands of these cars are still around and like this one are road worthy. This particular car was driven to the show. I have never had the opportunity to be up close to a Model A before and I was struck by the simple yet sophisticated design (we are talking 1930 after all). The lot was pretty crowded and the light was pretty harsh preventing good pictures of the exterior, but I did manage to get some pictures of the interior that I think capture the essence of this unique vehicle.
From the driver’s side window you get a good view of the clean design of the steering wheel. That lever on the steering column is not a blinker (there were no blinkers), it is actually spark advance lever. Modern cars advance the ignition timing automatically as the engine speed increases, on the Model A, you got to do that manually. The lever in the center of the steering wheel is the light switch. To the left turns on the running lights, straight down is off, one click to the right is low beams and two clicks is high beams.
From the passenger side you can see the minimalist dashboard and some of the other controls, the lever on this side of the steering column is actually a throttle, as you move it you can see the gas pedal move up and down (The gas pedal is that little silver button on the floorboard). The black stick next to the gearshift is the emergency brake and the knob on the bottom of the dash is the high speed carburetor adjustment.
Here is a view of the engine. I like the centrally located distributor which eliminated the need for long spark plug wires.
The fuel filter consisted of a sediment bowl. The idea was that as fuel sat in the bowl, impurities would settle to the bottom and not get to the carburetor.
Pretty fancy step plate for such a simple car.
This trunk is obviously after market, but some model A’s were equipped like this.
And of course the rear window has a pull down shade
More information on the Model A can be found here.
