Do You Get it?

[Nemesis F150]

Nothing Special wrote

Yeah, the '28 and '29 cowl ended with about a 1" step out to the body on each side.  The '30 and '31 cowl blended into the body.

By the way, the cowl tank in the Model A solved a problem the earlier Model T had.  Neither had a fuel pump, relying on gravity to get the fuel from the tank to the carb.  The T had the tank lower and further back in the car.  It worked fine most of the time, but my grandmother told me about a hill she had to negotiate between her house and her job.  It was steep enough that with the T's nose pointed up the hill the gas tank was no longer above the carb, and the engine would run out of gas.  So she had to stop at the bottom, turn around and back up the hill to make it up!

Way back in the olden days (as our daughter calls them), I was in New Zealand and fell in love …. with a Model A touring car. It had a brown body with black fenders, decked out with lights on the cowl and what appeared to be plate glass wind deflectors off the side of the windshield. The whole car was in good condition, albeit with faded paint. Tried to figure out how to get it home but ran out of time. Right hand drive but apparently it coudl be converted to left hand drive. Don’t remember what the price was but it was less than £100 Kiwi pounds in ’66.

Speaking of the Model T again:
As for your grandmother backing up the hill to get to work, all I can say is that she was some grandmother! Save that for the family history! Mentioned the story to my wife and she was in awe! I won’t say who, but I know one wife who struggles to back out of a two-car driveway (and with a rear facing camera).

If the road was that steep, chances are it was wasn’t even paved back then. If it was a dirt road, even with gravel, the rain would have caused ruts so that would have upped the difficulty level. I was asked about traffic … and likely there was very little (significant other is very safety concerned).

Oh, and one more side story. My folks (Dad was an early 4-wheeler) were on the very first Jeep Jamboree (Rubicon) in ’53, from Georgetown over the Sierras to Lake Tahoe. Waaaay back in there, over grainite rocks and at high altitude, was an abandoned Model T! Never found out what all the 4-wheelers felt about that!

[Nothing Special]

Nemesis F150 wrote

....  As for your grandmother backing up the hill to get to work, all I can say is that she was some grandmother! Save that for the family history! Mentioned the story to my wife and she was in awe! I won’t say who, but I know one wife who struggles to back out of a two-car driveway (and with a rear facing camera).

If the road was that steep, chances are it was wasn’t even paved back then. If it was a dirt road, even with gravel, the rain would have caused ruts so that would have upped the difficulty level. I was asked about traffic … and likely there was very little (significant other is very safety concerned)....

That was my mom's mom.  She was born in the early nineteen aughts, and grew up on a farm in Iowa with mostly sisters and one brother, so I'm guessing she got quite a bit of experience with whatever machinery they had.  But driving the T into town is the only story I ever heard from her.  At her funeral I found out that she played high school basketball somewhere around 1920, long before most areas had any girls sports.  It was half-court (they figured girls couldn't run far enough to play full court).  But I think I missed out on a lot of other stories.

Nemesis F150 wrote

....  Oh, and one more side story. My folks (Dad was an early 4-wheeler) were on the very first Jeep Jamboree (Rubicon) in ’53, from Georgetown over the Sierras to Lake Tahoe. Waaaay back in there, over grainite rocks and at high altitude, was an abandoned Model T! Never found out what all the 4-wheelers felt about that!

Very cool that your dad was on the first Jamboree!  The Rubicon is a trail that's been on my bucket list since I was 10 years old!  I was lined up to go on it this year with the same group of old Jeeps I went 'wheeling with last year.  But too many other issues came up this year and I had to drop out .

"Cadillac Hill" near the end of the Rubicon is named for an old car that was found abandoned near the trail.  As I understand it would have been a Model T vintage car, but was a luxury car and was thought to be a Cadillac (although I've heard it was actually a DeSalle (edit:  sorry, that would be "LaSalle")).  That might be the car your dad saw.

But keep in mind that Rubicon Springs was a luxury resort spa back in the day.  I'm sure the road wasn't anything like the roads that go to today's luxury resort spas!  But I'm thinking it wasn't the Jeep trail it's become either.