The following are some of the interesting questions and facts of the Ford Model A, that we received.

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• What is the farthest distance that a Model A has traveled, and when?

A 1928 Model A was driven by Hector Quevedo from his home town of Punta Arenas, Chile to Ford Motor Company headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan . Quevedo was joined by his son Hugo. The journey lasted over two years, from October 1992 to December 1994, and covered nearly 22,000 miles (35,000 km). The car required minimal service including a flat tire and transmission work in Nicaragua . The car is now housed in the Henry Ford Museum , and hold a world record in a intercontinental distance by a single vehicle.

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• In how many body styles did the Ford Model A was presented during his years of production ?

The Model A came in a wide variety of styles: Coupe (Standard and Deluxe), Business Coupe, Sport Coupe, Roadster Coupe (Standard and Deluxe ), Convertible Cabriolet , Convertible Sedan , Phaeton (Standard and Deluxe), Tudor (Standard and Deluxe), Town Car, Fordor (2-window) (Standard and Deluxe), Fordor (3-window) (Standard and Deluxe), Victoria, Station Wagon, Taxicab, Truck, and Commercial. In total they produced 19 styles for cars, 4 styles of pickups, and 7 styles of station wagons, between 1928 to 1931.

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• Back during the years of production, what was the price of a new Ford Model A ?

Prices for the Model A ranged from US$ 385 for a roadster to $ 1400 for the top-of-the-line Town Car. Pickup trucks were around US$ 500.00, and trucks around US$ 650.00. (The yearly salary back at the time was US$ 900.00 or around US$ 20.00 a week).

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• What made the Ford Model A, so special for the automotive industry ?

The vehicle is the first Ford to use the standard set of driver controls, with conventional clutch and brake pedals, throttle, starter and gearshift; previous Ford models used controls that often perplexed the inexperienced driver. The Model A's fuel tank is located inside the cab, between the engine compartment's fire wall and the dash panel. It has a mechanical fuel gauge and is elevated above the engine and carburetor as its a gravity fuel system. In cooler climates, some owners could purchase an after market cast iron unit to place over the engine's exhaust manifold to bring heated air into the passenger side of the cab through a fire wall opening. A small door could be opened or closed to adjust the amount of hot air entering the cab. In the summer, some people would take the cast iron heater unit off the manifold to keep the cab cooler. The windshield can hinge forward from the bottom to allow air to flow into the cab for cooling. Also this was the first car to have safety glass in the windshield.

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• Did the Model A was only made in the United States ?

No, in addition to the United States, Ford made the Model A in plants in Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The U.S.S.R. company GAZ , which started as a cooperation between Ford and the Soviet Union , made a licensed version of the Model A.

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• Why Weren't Model A's Offered in Black in 1928-29?

It's a kind of a long story, but I will try to summarized, but first, I have to agree to said that black was a special order color, not standard, at least when the Ford Model A was introduced. Most of the high end cars were black, as a luxury item. When the 1928's came out, each passenger car body style was offered in a minimum of five color combos, black not being one of them. (Yes, black could be ordered, but wasn't included in the initial releases). Often this myriad of options on a low-priced car was achieved by simply reversing the upper and lower body colors. Nevertheless, there were color combinations offered. Why wasn't black one of these options? What happened to black? To answer that, we need to look back a couple years in FoMoCo history before the Model A was introduced. Black had been the only color available on Model T's from 1915 to 1925. Green, red and blue had been available on Model T's up to that time, as well as black. Why then were Fords after 1914 painted only black for the next 11 model years? - The pigmented colors of the day took longer to dry than black. Until better, faster drying proxylin colors came out in the later 20's, black was chosen by Ford as the only color. A dry car body was a car body ready to mount on a chassis and sell! That meant it had to be black. Until the middle 20's when sales alarmingly slowed down, Ford couldn't make Model T's fast enough as it was to meet the demand without being saddled with slow drying colors.

In an effort to get back into the sales race by updating a hopelessly out of date Model T design, Ford offered the new 1926 closed cars in colors: Deep Channel Green for coupes and Tudors, Windsor Maroon on Fordors. Other colors became available later, too, but that's not critical to this discussion. Letters to dealers from the Boss even stressed their need to talk customers out of wanting black on their new closed body Model T's. Open cars (the cheap ones in the line), however, continued to be black until late in the year. Possibly during the August year model change (not January, as with Model A's), open cars now became available in colors, such as Phoenix Brown and Gunmetal Blue. The point here is, Ford was trying to change the image of his cars only coming in black. By then, this was synonymous with driving an out of date car. When the Model T era ended in May, 1927, more new Model T's were wearing colors than black.

So jump ahead to the introduction of the Model A, which was to outdistance the Model T in every way. Mr. Ford, considered this new car so advanced that he jumped back to the letter "A" in the alphabet instead of calling it a Model X,Y,Z or whatever. When the cars were announced for public viewing on December 2, 1927, black was not one of the standard colors listed. This was yet another gambit to get away from the "any color you want as long as it's black" old saw that was hung on the Model T. The introduction of the faster drying proxylin pigmented paints made it once again possible to mass produce cars in colors. Black was retained for the fenders and splash aprons, however. In early 1929, the color black was once again available in some models. So were there black Model A's? Of course! And lots of them.

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• How any cars did Ford Motor Company, in peak season was able to manufacture ?

The amount of cars that Ford was able to produce per day still amaze people. By 1926 Ford Motor Company production lines, were able to produce 6,004 cars a day. Which means 240 cars per hour or 4 cars per minute; with a labor force of 80,000 employees, making $5.00 a day.

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• Just how many "Model A's" were made during the production period?

The Model A Production started on Oct. 20th, 1927. By Feb. 4th, 1929 Model A, No. 1,000,000
rolled off the production line. Final production ended on Aug. 31st, 1931 with 4,320,446. The chart below show quantities and styles during production years of the Model A (1928-1931).

Last Update 05.01.09