MTFCA Forum

Found on he 'net. One photo in Flinder's Lane Melbourne. The car on the left has a Red Cross windscreen label, and further back up the street are similar T's that could be part of a small fleet owned by the Red Cross. I believe they had offices nearby.



Dandenong was a very outer suburb- about 20 miles from the center of the City. It is now considered part of the City as suburbs have grown up for another ten miles beyond it Two photos of the Dandenong Produce Market from 1924. Several TT's are evident.

Great photos, The cars look new in the first photo. Thanks for sharing

The bottom two remind me of a strip mall with car park (horse too!) in front. One long building broke down into several smaller shops. Note in the first one, the head light forks. Wonder if they were later fitted with gas of electric lights, my bet would be gas. ?

In the first picture the front car in the right of the picture looks like a Model T. It has the front axle like a Ford, however the fenders are rounded very similar to a Model A. Can you tell us something about the differences between Austrailian Fords and American Fords?
Norm

Hi Norm. The front 2 cars are model T's with bodies built by Tarrant Motors who were the Ford agents for the state of Victoria. They sometimes used crowned fenders like on the car on the right. That car also has the distinctive Tarrant rounded top radiator tank.

Andrew

Mark, our Canadian sourced 1915 cars often had forked electric headlights as standard. The car on the left is a Ford body, and the forked headlights would make it a 1915 model.

Allan from down under.

Mark,
Many of our Canadian T's of early 15'ns had forked electric head lights.

Norm.
The teens made interesting history on how T's would get to Australia, complete T's from Canada wasn't a problem pre war, then shipping was harder by 1915/16. Shipping black listed the southern end of the world due to German subs sinking freighters. Australian shipping more so as the British ordered that all shipping must take a back load of wool and grain back to England. Some 5000 cars of all makes ended up stuck in New York for export over 1916. So room for numbers would bring some complete T's and unbodied T's in sailing clippers from Canada to try and fill orders. The war and politics played a big part so body builders in each state had contracts with Ford and other cars suppliers, protecting local coach builders jobs. Then to make it even harder, an embargo was imposed on all USA cars and Canadian T's got caught up in that mess as well. By the time the embargo was sorted about august 17 with only running chasis allowed into Australia, some cars started to dribble in. 10% extra tax above British car imports and to be fitted with only Australian Dunlop made tyres, we never really had the release of the black radiator T until very late 17 and was released as the 18 model.
As for that T on the right, it would be a something a little flashy to buy at the time, a deluxe Tarrant bodied T.

To add to Kerry's comments, Fords were sent to Australia as boxes of CKD parts, a little before the 1917 embargo. They included all except the body. That was to reduce freight volume and therefore costs. Because the War had such a profound affect on shipping with firstly increased demand, then many losses, costs escalated. Retired sailing vessels were pressed back into service, and there are some interesting stories about some of them.

I'd have to check, but IIRC cars were shipped as batches of ten- so a case would have (say) ten steering columns, another ten sets of radius rods etc, or some similar arrangement. It was then up to the various Australian importers to assemble the cars and arrange for bodies to be built. The ship John Murray was wrecked at Maiden Island in the Pacific, and over the years lots of T parts have been washed up on the island.
Dane.

The roadster "3266" at left has a red(?) cross placard in the windscreen. Would this be similar to MD plates in the US?