Video: How To Start and Drive a Model T Ford

[Guest Magoo]

Being able to operate a Model T Ford should be a core skill for gearheads, like double-clutching or adjusting breaker points. And while the process seems difficult or at least strange, actually it's quite easy and fun. Here's a great little video tutorial.

Video: How to Start and Run a Model T Ford | Mac's Motor City Garage.com

[Pete O]

Sit a modern day driver who can operate a manual transmission but has no antique car experience in a Model A Ford, and they will likely be able to drive it. Sure it won't be pretty as the gears will clash when they attempt to shift. But sit that same person in a Model T, and they will have absolutely no idea where to begin. I've heard that back in the day, some states made Model T owners re-take their driver's license road tests if they bought a car other than a Model T. It's that different, and because of that fact, it is so much fun to drive a Model T.

[motoringicons]

This is a great video. I am proud to say I sold him this car and it is his first old car. Always good to start a new collector off with a "real" old car!!!!! More proof that younger people really do like "real" old cars!!!!

[Scooter Guy]

This is neat.

There is a small farming/rural life museum not far from me that has offered open-to-the-public classes on how to operate a Model T, which I thought was a really great idea (sort of the "living history" approach). For $10 and your signature on some liability waivers, you get 3 hours of history, instruction, and a chance to drive the car yourself. Unfortunately due to a schedule conflict I was not able to participate...I sure would have liked to! This same museum is currently offering a similar program for antique tractors, but I keep watching for the Model T "class" to be offered again. I'm going to make it a point not to miss it next time.

I think that sort of immersion experience is a great way to attract younger members (or even not-so-young new members). I'd like to see more events offer that type of opportunity to the general public.

[Guest Magoo]

This is a great video. I am proud to say I sold him this car and it is his first old car. Always good to start a new collector off with a "real" old car!!!!! More proof that younger people really do like "real" old cars!!!!

Wow, that's great. He seems like a good young man.

[rocketraider]

I'd like to learn to drive one, but don't know anyone reasonably close who owns one. I knew how the pedals worked but did not know about the hand brake lever part of it.

My Grandpa Williamson bought one in the early 20s but never mastered it, and after running it into a couple of fences put it away. When my dad and uncle were 12 and 14, they got the thing started and out from under the shed and putted around the farmyard with it, and Grandpa W got interested in it again- but he always made the boys drive where they went. Then my Aunt Tillie learned to drive it and the Williamsons were mobile. I remember my dad saying they would regularly drive it to see kinfolks 50 miles away.

[keiser31]

Thanks to the posting of this video, the Model T mystery (in my head for so many years) is solved. Thank you so very much! John

[Hudsy Wudsy]

Great Fun! It's like everything that you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask!

[Guest Magoo]

Sit a modern day driver who can operate a manual transmission but has no antique car experience in a Model A Ford, and they will likely be able to drive it. Sure it won't be pretty as the gears will clash when they attempt to shift. But sit that same person in a Model T, and they will have absolutely no idea where to begin. I've heard that back in the day, some states made Model T owners re-take their driver's license road tests if they bought a car other than a Model T. It's that different, and because of that fact, it is so much fun to drive a Model T.

Sure. But if one had never driven a car back them, a Model T would be much easier to learn and drive than other automobiles of the teens and '20s, the pre-synchomesh era. Shifting and clutching a non-syncho box is an actual skill, where the Model T is a semi-automatic drive, more or less. Conventional cars and gearboxes were not only more difficult to clutch and shift, and they were generally much larger, heavier, and more cumbersome in general. A child could drive a Model T, and many did. Personally, I would equate the Model T's degree of difficulty to a garden tractor with a hydrostatic transmission.

Great point that many states had two driver licenses, one for Ford and the other for conventional cars. Throughout its production life, the Ford had a solid and loyal user base. Rather like the Mac vs. PC thing today, you might say. Along with Henry's basic stubbornness, one more reason the Ford stayed in production so long -- too long, surely -- was Ford nation. Many owners didn't know how to drive anything else, and didn't really want to learn.

This reportedly includes Henry I himself. He was 64 years old when the Model T was discontinued and it is said he never bothered to master the conventional clutch and transmission. By that time he had drivers to take him everywhere, and witnesses say he tried it a few times, quickly became annoyed with the grinding and gnashing, and gave it up.

[keiser31]

This reportedly includes Henry I himself. He was 64 years old when the Model T was discontinued and it is said he never bothered to master the conventional clutch and transmission. By that time he had drivers to take him everywhere, and witnesses say he tried it a few times, quickly became annoyed with the grinding and gnashing, and gave it up.

"Old dog...new tricks" comes to mind.

[Pete O]

Sure. But if one had never driven a car back them, a Model T would be much easier to learn and drive than other automobiles of the teens and '20s, the pre-synchomesh era. Shifting and clutching a non-syncho box is an actual skill, where the Model T is a semi-automatic drive, more or less. Conventional cars and gearboxes were not only more difficult to clutch and shift, and they were generally much larger, heavier, and more cumbersome in general. A child could drive a Model T, and many did. Personally, I would equate the Model T's degree of difficulty to a garden tractor with a hydrostatic transmission.

I agree. If not for our modern preconceived ideas of how a car should operate, a T really is much more fool proof than a sliding gear transmission. Actually, the Model T transmission is more like a modern automatic transmission, except that the shifting is controlled by your left leg rather than by hydraulics. Had Henry Ford known anything about hydraulics, he could have beat GM by 20 years to bring out the first automatic transmission.

[ModelTMitch]

I wondered why my video view count is sky-rocketing! Thanks for sharing my video, I must have done something right

For links to my other Model T videos, see my discussion topic...

http://forums.aaca.org/f169/ford-model-t-owners-enthusiasts-educational-349983.html

Being able to operate a Model T Ford should be a core skill for gearheads, like double-clutching or adjusting breaker points. And while the process seems difficult or at least strange, actually it's quite easy and fun. Here's a great little video tutorial.

Video: How to Start and Run a Model T Ford | Mac's Motor City Garage.com

[ModelTMitch]

Hi Guy,

I must say, I'm still thrilled that you sold me the Model T, she's still going as good as always, as a matter of fact, I have a further 4 car shows I will be attending with it this year, possibly more

Thanks again!

This is a great video. I am proud to say I sold him this car and it is his first old car. Always good to start a new collector off with a "real" old car!!!!! More proof that younger people really do like "real" old cars!!!!

[Guest Magoo]

I wondered why my video view count is sky-rocketing! Thanks for sharing my video, I must have done something right

For links to my other Model T videos, see my discussion topic...

http://forums.aaca.org/f169/ford-model-t-owners-enthusiasts-educational-349983.html

I watched a dozen or more Model T how-to videos and yours was the best.

[oldford]

I can relate to the problems of driving an early sliding gear transmission. I owned many model t's in the last 30 years and never thought of changing to something different until one of them ran me over. That's another story, though. I went to an EMF with its cone clutch and straight cut gears. It took me two weeks of lurching forward and grinding gears just to get from first to second. I've had the car for two years now and have finally got to the point of being able to down shift from 3rd to 2nd without grinding. "It all in the training..." I can believe the stories of model t drivers never learning to drive sliding gear transmissions....

Frank

[Guest Magoo]

I can relate to the problems of driving an early sliding gear transmission. I owned many model t's in the last 30 years and never thought of changing to something different until one of them ran me over. That's another story, though. I went to an EMF with its cone clutch and straight cut gears. It took me two weeks of lurching forward and grinding gears just to get from first to second. I've had the car for two years now and have finally got to the point of being able to down shift from 3rd to 2nd without grinding. "It all in the training..." I can believe the stories of model t drivers never learning to drive sliding gear transmissions....

Frank

I've had similar experiences. You need to sandpaper your fingers when you drive those cars.

[Dandy Dave]

I have Mastered both the Tin Lizzy, and Sliding gears. With sliding gears it is like driving an old Mack Truck. It is just about like swaping a Guitar for a Fiddle in the middle of a song. Hop out of a Modern Hydraulic Excavator and into a vintage cable machine. Swap a Bucyrus-Erie for a North-West, or a Byers Bearcat Jr. and watch the fun begin. LOL... Any other Operators out there that can do it??? Dandy Dave!