Jack’s ’26 – Victoria, British Columbia, Canada – Part 1 – Introduction
From Wikipedia:
The Ford Model T (colloquially known as the “tin Lizzie”, “leaping Lena”, “jitney” or “flivver”) is an automobile produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relatively low price was partly the result of Ford’s efficient fabrication, including assembly line production instead of individual hand crafting.The Ford Model T was named the most influential car of the 20th century in the 1999 Car of the Century competition, ahead of the BMC Mini, Citroën DS, and Volkswagen Type 1. Ford’s Model T was successful not only because it provided inexpensive transportation on a massive scale, but also because the car signified innovation for the rising middle class and became a powerful symbol of the United States’ age of modernization. With 16.5 million sold, it stood eighth on the top-ten list of most sold cars of all time, as of 2012.
And now, from Jack:
I guess one of the things most hot rodders have in common is a vision of what their next hot rod might look like.
This was happening to me around 2006 when we were planning to sell the farm and retire, while at the same time, Al Clark was putting the finishing touches on our 40 Ford Tudor. Pictures of Track T’s started to appear in magazines and on the internet that caught my attention. I was familiar with T buckets, regular T roadsters, tall T’s, etc. – but a street legal interpretation of an old dirt track racer was new, at least to me.
Time marched on, we retired, moved back home to Vancouver Island and started to reconnect with hot rodders and other like minded individuals. In 2007 Margaret and I took the ’40 east and participated in the inaugural Canadian Hot Rod Tour “Points West”. There we met all kinds of enthusiasts including Clark Pringle, Marc LeTrace and several others who were about to become involved in the building of my roadster even though none of us knew it at the time.
Then, in 2010 our whole family participated as volunteers at Al Clark’s Northwest Deuce Days. My grandson, Cody who was not quite twenty years old at the time, decided right there that he was going to build a hot rod. He returned to Alberta and within a couple of weeks his mother phoned and declared to me: “You better get out here, Cody has found an old truck which he wants to make into a hot rod’. “He has agreed to let you look at it before he buys it”. We caught the next flight and this is what we brought home to his backyard shop.
On closer inspection under the hood, I determined that, not only was there a complete flathead in there, but it still had a full load of anti freeze in it and the rotating assembly (surprise!) rotated.
My words to him were “Don’t you let this flathead out of the family”. An arrangement was quickly made whereby Cody got a used ZZ3 crate motor from Al Clark’s Tudor, some cash changed hands and I had acquired what I hoped was a rebuild-able flathead.
A few weeks later we were back in Alberta with our pickup and here we are ready to head back to the Island:
My Track Tee project had begun!
More of Jack’s project in a future installment.
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