Art & Inspiration What would you have driven

I was thinking today how impractical my model A roadster is. don't get me wrong I love the car but during the thirty's it seems most families had one car. So a pickup or sedan seems the logical choice not a open car or a coupe with a rumble seat
So the guestion is who would have bought a car like that
Glade they did !!!

 

Young single men, who else would buy an impractical car like that.

 

People with the means to have two vehicles. A family sedan, and a roadster for Dad to drive to work. Doctors, lawyers, bankers, some businessmen with higher incomes.
Seems logical to me….

 

My Dad's family of four had a coupe. My thought is that's what they could afford.

 

back when they were new the roadsters and touring car were the cheapest to buy new or used.

 

So what would you have bought ?
I think I would have to say a pickup and kids would ride in the bed remember the show the Walton's they drove a flat bed
Worked for them

 

Knowing myself, I'd have owned the best cheap car I could afford, daydreamed of how it could be if it only had more time and money.
Sedan, wagon, truck, roadster, who knows?

 

Cost. The 4 door sedans were usually on the high end. Roadsters usually were the lowest price. Kinda opposite to the hotrodder mentality.

 

Let's make a couple of ***umptions. 1st how old any of us were when we got our 1st car. I was 14 for the 1st time I bought a car, but I was 17 when I got my 1st real street car. The 14 year old's car was a 55 Ford Customline, and the year was 1968. So that car was 13 years old. The 17 year old's car was a 62 CJ5 Jeep, and the year was 1972. That one was only 10 years old.

2nd ***umption. Very few of us would be buying a new car the 1st time. Using me as a data point, let's guess that the average age of our 1st driveable car was about 10 to 12 years old, and we paid cash for it. Meaning it had to be cheap!

That roadster you pictured is a 1928-29 Model A, so taking those factors, and thinking how it all relates, we would have bought a Model T Ford, a 1917-18 model year. And it would have been well used probably by then. And it would have been CHEAP!

Well at least that's what I think... I have been known to be wrong. Just ask my wife...

 

Gold-Diggin' Papas
drive roadsters.

 

I believe the 2 door sedans were by far the biggest seller. My first car was a 4 door that was older than me because it was cheap. I wanted to have a 2 door hardtop but that was a dream at the time. I live on the wet coast so there is not too much practicality to a roadster/convertible.

 

I don't know....I expect my situation would probably have been a lot different than my current situation, had I been alive then.

(ad is for the new 1928 model A)

 

I have always wondered this about my car. It is a early AR Roadster built in the Canada. It had been parked since the early 60’s in Saskatchewan Canada. Then I was pulling everything out of it to start my build I found a pair of well worn tire chains tucked in beside the seat frame. I wish the car could talk I could only imagine the owner back in the 30’s having to put snow chains on your roadster and heading out into a prairie -30C snow storm. It was cold enuf at 1C this morning heading out to grab coffee with snow still on the ground from last weekend and now I have a heated seat. It must be true people are softer now

 

My dad bought his first car as a high school senior in 1929, it was a Model T touring. I don't know what year it was but he was a poor farm boy so I'm sure he paid some minimal amount for it, it had to be an older one in very used condition. I know he painted it red with a brush so it must have been pretty snazzy. He lived in northern Minnesota, so an open car must have been fun when winter came.

 

Mom's Dad bought a new 1929 Ford Fordor, my Dad bought a new 1935 Ford Fordor when he was 20

 

I don't know, in 1976 I was 19 and newly married. My wife had a 2 door hardtop (a 72 model year), and I had a 4 door sedan (a 65 model year) and a 2 door coupe (a 66 model year) that was a hot rod. Three cars, two drivers (I'm not counting the dirt track car). I was working at a gas station and was fixing cars on the side, and my wife was an LPN at a nursing home, none of the jobs paid well, all 3 cars were cheap to buy. I needed that 2nd car so I could get to work most Mondays.

My car choices were all about what I thought we needed at any given time. Lots of cars p***ed through my hands during those years. I'd buy, sell, trade, part out, or s**** them. Practicality didn't enter the picture until we had the 2nd kid, 5 years later. Then the practicality meant my wife needed a good car to haul the kids around.

 

@squirrel 's post says it all. A 30% premium to get a closed car is a hell of a lot of dough. Think in terms of today's dollars... say the average low price on a new car is $30K, would you be able to pony up $10K for a roof, especially if financing (which wasn't as common then) is not available?

 

I can't say what I would have bought but remember my dad telling about him and his Bud Lyle Browning going down to the local wrecking yard where dad paid 5.00 for the complete body with interior off a sedan and they unbolted it and put it on the ch***is of the touring car his family had at the time so his mom and younger siblings could be a bit warmer riding in it in the winter.

 

My Dad's first car (used Model A roadster), I think he paid $25 for it! Also, another thing to consider is the fact that many people didn't drive their cars in the snow. Hard to believe, but most people lived and worked, etc. not far from their residence. Many walked to work/to the store (the neighborhood grocery) or to catch a bus at least in our area. Buses were still prevalent when I was growing up and remember going from our town to the next on occasion ( also hitchhiked without my parent's knowledge).

 

Compared to the horse and buggy or sleigh it likely replaced, that model A roadster would be very comfortable. It would cut the time of the trip down significantly. My uncle talks about using heated bricks and lots of blankets to try and keep warm, and the driver may have been fortified as well.

 

That is one thing we forget, the 20’s weren’t that far from the days of horse drawn wagon travel. In some areas, horses and wagons still outnumbered cars well into the 50’s. People were accustomed to open vehicle travel, so touring cars and roadsters weren’t much different than what they had grown up with. Closed cabs were a luxury. Folks were tougher then, closed cabs, heat and later ,AC , softened us up.

 

I'd probably have driven what I drive now, but the older intimation. So a coupe.... My family is only three, me wife and the kid, and he loves the coupe and going fast, lol, so I can see us back then ripping down the road at 45 mph...

 

This car was purchased May 5, 1942 and was a 1932 three window coupe at the time. In early 50s, a friend found a 1932 cabriolet body in an old Ford dealership about 30 miles away and bought it. They switched the bodies and added provisions for a bolt on roll bar and the pair helped start the Deer Park Drag Strip in the early 50s.


The body was found here:

[/ATTACH]


It looked like the above when I bought it. It had a 1932-34 4 banger with a Ford 5 speed transmission and 8" Ford rear end... and 4 wheel disc brakes.

I made a few changes... including the complete engine and switch pitch transmission from a 1965 Buick Riviera Gran Sport.


And yep; I drive it!

 

Young single men, or a young couple with no kids would be those who'd buy a roadster. Young people with kids who wanted to still drive something sporty had little options in the early 1930's, but by the later 30's p***enger coupes with cramped rear seats that were fine for small kids were offered. My '39 Chev coupe is an "Opera coupe" which had seats that faced each other, and seat bases that folded up into the trunk divider when nobody was in the backseat.

 

My uncle was one of the very first highway patrolmen in Minnesota. I have a photo of him standing next to his Model A coupe patrol car, in the middle of winter. Even ***uming it had some sort of heater it still must not have been very comfortable to drive around in for a full shift every day, certainly nothing like the HVAC system in today's cars.

 

Model A’s have pretty good ventilation with the windshield open, a coupe with a roll down back window would be even better. Plus we’re spoiled these days, no one would have imagined riding around with ac all day long.

 

What kind of amazes me, is that if you go back far enough... 1912 and previous... they were ALL open.
Go back even further. I wasn't around, but I think almost all the wagons and carriages were "convertibles". Okay, stagecoaches were enclosed. But I don't think they had roll up windows.
I guess the saving grace was that they traveled a lot slower.

 

How about those fancy chauffeur driven cars that had the p***enger area enclosed and the driver's area open?

 

The use of a car was for necessity, work and errands,
Who said everyone could go? Large families meant the grand folks kept an eye on the kids.
Also how much comfort was needed? I recall four of us on the seat of Father's dump truck.
Mom got to sit by the right door. Sis in the middle and I rode on Father's left. He took this measure to avoid sis picking at me. He made certain that the door handle stayed down in the lock position.

 

1928 A's were a much more modern car that 27's in all respects. in 1928 plenty of people were still driving open cars because just a few short years before the majority of cars for the common man were open. thrifty people bought roadsters because they were cheaper and freezing your **** off in the car was not that unusual back then.

now they don't even sell cars without AC.