Читать книгу 60 Years Behind the Wheel - Bill Sherk - Страница 24

1912 Model T Touring, Leamington, 1939

TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS (AND SEVEN miles) separate this photo from the previous one. Note the white-on-black 1939 Ontario plate mounted not in front of the rad but just ahead of the windshield, perhaps for better cooling.

Two names are hand-written on the back of the original photo: “Harry Hartford now dead, Ray Serviss now dead.” The author has been able to identify all five occupants, thanks to Jack Hartford and his younger brother Harry Hartford. Their dad, Harry Hartford, is behind the wheel. The front-seat passenger is Jack Robertson. Seated in the left rear of the car is Harry Page. In the centre is Gord Stockwell. Seated in the right rear and wearing a cap is Ray Serviss. It is believed that the car did not belong to Harry Hartford but was lent to him to drive in a parade through town for the Old Boys’ Reunion of 1939. Harry owned a Penny Farthing bicycle back then, and “Cider” Hillman may have ridden Harry’s bicycle in that same parade.

Harry Hartford operated a Red Indian Service Station on the northeast corner of Talbot and Victoria in Leamington in the 1930s and 1940s (on the original site of Leamington Auto Wreckers dating back to the 1920s). By the 1950s, Harry’s station was a Texaco and was operated by his son Jack Hartford.

Is this the same car as the T in the 1912 photo? It’s possible, given the same area, but unlikely in light of the high number of Model Ts built and sold. Dick Forster was the first Ford dealer in Leamington, followed by Stodgell and Symes, then Campbell Motors until 1942, then Eaton Motors (1942–54), then Jackson Motors. The current dealer (Land Ford-Lincoln) is preparing to vacate its Talbot Street East property (a former Studebaker dealership) for larger premises on the Highway 3 bypass north of town.

If we look closely at the Model T in the 1939 photo, we can see signs of its age. The headlight lens on the passenger side is cracked, some rad fins are bent, and the top is missing. And yet the car appears still in good shape after nearly three decades on the road (some Ts still driven by then were held together with baling wire). The stickers on both windshields are likely souvenirs of trips to other places.

The three fellows seated in the back appear to have sufficient leg room. When Henry Ford was designing the Model T, he reportedly said the distance between the back of the front seat and the front of the back seat had to be wide enough for a farmer’s two milk cans. To keep the cost down, most Model Ts had no fuel pump, no oil pump, and no water pump. When questioned about the lack of shock absorbers, Ford reportedly said, “The passengers are the shock absorbers.”