Spotted at swap meet -- RHD 1929 Model A Phaeton

Not mine, just a neat for-sale item I saw at the Belvidere swap meet yesterday, and in running condition. First one I ever saw with right hand drive. Seller said it came out of South America, Argentina maybe? A little steep for me, but what a great candidate for a hopped up banger jalopy.

 

Most cars that come out of South America have had rough lives, that one doesn't look any different.

 

I wouldn't kick it out of bed.....

 

Rough yeah, but what was the asking price?

 

hell if i had the fundage i'd drive the snot out of it..

 

Very cool ! I have some cars from South Africa.

Interesting hat that fellow has on.

What was the asking price ?

 

If i'd had the spending cash, that would have come home with me.

 

When I looked at it someone said it was $10000.00. Not sure if that is true or not.

 

a gent i met in Columbia SC had a really pretty Argentine A Model, as well as several others in various states of condition. he let me take pictures, and took a picture of me sitting in the Argentine car. nice guy, can't for the life of me remember his name. i was raised on A's and it's starting to get back to me; looking for a 30-31 Fordor now. gotta be a few stock ones left yet.

 

That car is not rough! Who are you guys? A bunch a wussies? That car looks almost pristine in those pics.

And I think $10,000 sounds reasonable for a complete and driving A phaeton.

 

It was a solid little car with no rot in the bottom of the doors or even the back panel. The wood looked good as well. A few bad things like a bit of Bondo on the front cowl, sedan windsheil frame ,fender were Beat Up and Homemade running boards. Over all it was a cool car and would make a sweet rod. He was asking 12 and would take 10 but I'm sure 9 would buy it.

 

Hey John, sorry I missed you there -- I'll hit the next swap meet at 3 AM so I can say hi!

That A was pretty cool, thought it'd make neat little cruiser a la Jim Jacob's phaeton or that jalopy phaeton at Bonneville.

Weird little fact I discovered -- I thought the guy might have misspoken about 'South America' because I always ***umed they drove on the right side in Argentina, and thought he meant South Africa. Turns out Argentina actually switched from left side to right side traffic in 1945...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_on_the_left_or_right

 

I believe Argentina swapped sides of the street in 1940 rather than 1945. We bought parts for many years from there and no RHD stuff was available for anything later than 1939, unless it was a continuation of 1939 parts through the next years. Perhaps the huge influx of Adolf's worshippers and their families had something to do with that.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of early Fords from Argentina in particular and South America in general have been imported into the US and Europe since the heydays of the late 70s-80s in the early Ford business. In particular the open cars, both roadsters/phaetons and convertible sedans/coupes, were the being loaded in Buenos Aires and shipped through Houston, NOLA, and Miami to hungry Ford lovers in the USA. All prior to 1940 were RH Drive if manufactured in Argentina.

 

Mike sorry I missed ya as well, went home to play with the car and had a soccer game later.
Dude, you know way too much stuff ....!

 

Hi all, this is a fairly old thread but I just wanted to post here to mention that this was how I come to sign up to the H.A.M.B. Iv just purchased a 1929 Ford Model A Phaeton in Jan 2012 which is RHD but was imported into the UK from Victoria B.C, Canada. The production date indicated it was built in the US for the South American market but am awaiting confirmation from a recent contact in Canada of where the vehicle originally came from.

The Phaeton is now down to bare metal ready to have the dents knocked out, but all in all there is no rot and the ch***is is stripped ready for a 350sbc. heres a few pics of mine a couple of months ago when it was all together.

 

That's what I was thinking. Looks pretty good from here!