BUYER’S GUIDE
the 1950s, when the Model A Restorers
Club (MARC) and Model A Ford Club
of America (MAFCA) were formed, and
NOS parts were still available in volume. As the popularity of these restorations grew through the 1960s and 1970s,
the reproduction restoration parts market grew to the point that fully finished
Roadster and Roadster Pick-Up cab bodies and Pick-Up Beds are available new
today. Jim Spawn, the editor of MAFCA’s
The Restorer, says that nothing is impossible to find; “We’ve probably never been
in this good shape—there’s a great market for A parts. The parts that were once
obsolete are now being remanufactured.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, a lot of the
restoration parts available came from
offshore, so there were quality issues,
but Model A vendors are constantly trying to improve them. If you simply can’t
find a part, and enough people want it,
someone will remake it because they can
sell it. It may take money, searching and
networking, but in the end, you’ll always
find whatever parts you’re looking for.”
Although their high survival rates
mean that most Model A variants will
never be prohibitively expensive, their
values have increased notably since the
days they were considered a “poor man’s
hobby.” “I’ve talked with some guys who
do nice A restorations, but they say that
they wouldn’t do another because it’s
cheaper to buy a finished car,” explains
MAFCA member John Firth. “The cost
of restoring a Model A depends on how
much a person can or wants to do himself. If you take a Model A to a professional restoration shop, you can easily
sink $40,000-50,000 into it. But if you
want a Model A to drive the grandkids
down for an ice cream cone on Sundays,
a car costing $10,000 or less will serve the
purpose. If you want to compete with
the big boys on Blue Ribbon judging at
national events, which works on a 500-
point system, the rule is that if you’re
going for anything over 425 points, it will
cost you $1,000 for each point you gain,”
he laughs.
Famous writer E.B. White summed
up the Model A’s enduring appeal more
than 50 years ago. “The reason the A is
going strong today is simple: The car
is a triumph of honest, unfussy design
and superior materials. It doesn’t look
like a turbojet or like an elephant’s ear,
it drinks gasoline in moderation, it puts
on no airs, and when something gets out
of adjustment, the owner can usually tinker it back to health himself.”
ENGINE
The general specifications for Ford’s L-head four-cylinder didn’t change throughout Model A production, so all cars shared
a 3.876 x 4.125-inch bore and stroke and
4.22: 1 compression ratio, and with their
“A” Family Heirloom
My father, Dennis, was 21 when he
bought the Andalusite Blue 1929 Fordor
in the summer of 1969, before starting his
senior year at Manhattan College. The
influence of one of my maternal grandfather’s favorite hobbies had played a role
in this decision: Pierre Renaud Jr. was a
lifelong Ford buff who owned numerous
Model Ts and Model As.
“I guess I was always interested in old
cars, and I liked seeing them driving
around,” Dad tells me. “Hanging out with
your mother and grandfather increased
that interest. We went on a Model A
Restorers Club road rally once, and he
paid for it—I’ve never heard the end of
it from [Perry’s brother] Jim since then,”
he laughs.
Being a college kid with a tight budget
meant he couldn’t afford to have the pitted radiator surround, headlamp buckets, door handles and bumpers plated in
nickel as original. He passed up a good
used ’ 29 shell because he didn’t have the
$5 to buy it at the time, and ended up
painting his shell black.
“I took the bumpers and headlights and
door handles to have them chromed down
in the Bronx, but they ruined the headlights by grinding the Ford script off of
the top of them,” he recalls ruefully.
A parts buying trip to Gaslight Auto
Parts in Ohio, driving my grandparents’
Buick station wagon between the end of
classes and graduation, primed his restoration work that summer. He ground
the factory paint off the Fordor with
drove the 1930 and let me drive his ’ 31.”
The sedan that Dad bought for $500 that
summer—“That was a huge amount of
money for me at
the time!” — was
a local car that
belonged to Perry
Kent, a farmer
and part of a well-known Model A
family. “I think he
bought it from the
original owner,
and he sold it to
me for what he
28 HEMMINGS MOTOR NEWS • JUNE 2009
