ID this car, please

[wengelson]

I'd like some help in identifying this car, please. TIA for your help. 

Willie Engelson, Pinehurst, NC

[cudaman]

It's a Model T Ford touring car, no earlier than 1917 and no later than 1920.  From the shiny paint, it looks to be fairly new.

[41 Su8]

Model T's with low radiators were made up through 1922 and early 1923.                   John

[Layden B]

The horn button on upper side of the steering column and what appear to be top sockets with oval cross section make this a 1917 or maybe 1918.

[wayne sheldon]

Great photo!

This one can be pinned down really tight, a "mid" 1917. The aforementioned horn button is the first clue. That style horn button began showing up early in 1915 only in the Center-door sedans and folding top couplets. They were the first Fords factory equipped with electric horns. The open body cars, touring cars and runabouts along with the commercial chassis had bulb horns until June of 1915 when some touring cars and runabouts began getting the electric horns. Touring cars and runabouts were (randomly?) outfitted with either bulb or electric horns at least through August of 1915, and some empirical evidence indicates that a few open body cars may have left the factory even as late as the end of calendar 1915. That style horn button continued all through 1916 and nearly all 1917. 1918 models got an "improved" combination horn button/light switch mounted on the side of the steering column. Some early 1918 model year cars did receive the older style horn button and simple light switch mounted on the firewall, but that crossover time didn't last long. 

The large and complicated 1918 style combination switch didn't last for very long. When the starter and generator option was first offered early 1919 model year (actually about December of 1918!), among the changes necessary for the new system was a change in the dash panel (earlier cars didn't have one unless it was after-market) with a better light and ignition switch. So the horn button was simplified, but left on the side of the steering column where the combination switch had been. That horn button with only a minor change to the button itself in the last couple years of model T production remained there on the side of the steering column.

 

The next set of significant details are the windshield and its particulars. A careful look at the split between the upper and lower glass and frames shows that the division between them is even with the windshield hinges. This was the way of virtually all touring cars and runabouts for model year 1915, all of 1916, and about half of the1917 model year. As far as I have heard, the exact timeline is not known, but roughly springtime of 1917 Ford altered the hinges for the side of the windshield, placing the hinge pin about three inches above the division between the upper and lower glasses. The offset is very noticeable, and can often be seen even in poor quality photos.

One more important detail. One that often cannot be seen except in very nice high detail era photos, and the detail in this photo is very nice!

Look carefully at the mounting bracket down near the bottom of the windshield frame. Just behind the chimney and top cap of the kerosene side/cowl lamp, are two little bumps on the outside of the windshield mounting bracket. Those "bumps" are the two large round head screws that secure the windshield frame into the mounting brackets. Earlier open car 1915 model, all 1916s, and early 1917 windshield frames were riveted into the mounting brackets. The rivets can only rarely be seen in era photographs due in part to their smaller size, and the fact that the rivets ran "front to back" instead of in from outside like the later machine screws. Again, the exact timeline is apparently not known. However, the low number of era photographs showing that combination of "even-fold" hinges and screws in the mounting brackets was likely produced for probably about two or three months only! Mid "model year" 1917, or early "calendar year" 1917, likely produced somewhere between February and May of 1917.

 

Probably more than you wanted to know. But I really like this photo!

[wengelson]

Someone sent me the bill of sale for this car. Thought y'all might like to see it.