MTFCA Forum

Hello. This spring, my brother and I went in together and purchased a Model T. A few years back, he came up with a bucket list idea that he would like to tour Yellowstone Park in an open touring car, and we've been working towards that goal since. Our old man was a high school teacher, and we spent every summer in the 80's and 90's up in Cooke City, just outside the Park. I practically learned to drive there.

We picked up a 1927 touring car last month. It's a real mixmaster, the story I got was that it was put together from parts many years ago - but it's a runner, and I was able to drive it 15 miles home the day I bought it. It has both Rocky Mountain brakes and a Ruckstell, which puts it close to what we need for a Yellowstone trip. Somewhere in the distant past, it was fitted out with a distributor setup (not a Bosch, not sure of what it is - it's stamped "Industria Argentina" inside). The is a Walker radiator intended for a small-block powered Hot Rod, but looks correct from the outside. It has a water pump installed, and it seems to hold between 160-180 so far. Also, the original Vaporizer carb setup was replaced with a Bendix sidedraft from a 2cyl Wisconsin industrial engine. Both are probably a travesty for collectors, but I figure the car has probably been operating like this longer than it was original, so the mods themselves are probably historical. The carburetor bothered me, because it leaked and ran rich no matter what I did. I've replaced it with a EBay knockoff of a Ford 8N carb and made up a quick inlet tube to bolt to the vaporizer manifold. It runs strong and smooth, and will pull 45 on a flat with the throttle hardly opened. We do want to move to an original carb at some point, but for now I'm content.

Congrats, and good luck with the dream trip.
About 10 yrs ago I was in Yellowstone and met a family, couple and two young kids, traveling the USA in an old 20's open Touring, can't remember the make. But they had travelled all the way from Argentina!! Talk about an adventure!!

Congrats and hope it goes well.
Wife and I were just talking about our trip up US 61 that starts here in New Orleans and runs the West side of Wisconsin.

What a great plan! Take me with you!

Welcome to the hobby, happy to have you and your brother on-board.

Think about attending the MTFCI annual tour in Owatonna, MN. Would be a good reliability test prior to Yellowstone.

You may have an Argentine-built Model T.
A Model T in good overall condition is quite reliable.

The distributor is one of those repop parts from 60's & 70's. My first T had one on it. The cap clips were bent sheet metal, not spring steel. Not a good quality piece. If I remember correctly, the points were Pinto. Crude, but did make the car run well.

She looks like a winner! a running car beats a 10 year "period correct" project in the garage.

Jerry,

If you are going, I am going. When do we start?

Well, it might be the easy way out, but our plan is to trailer the T to Cooke City or Gardiner and tour the park from there. In my defense, I've driven across the Great Plains more times than I can count, including five crossings in a Citroen 2CV (two westbound, three eastbound).
I can't say I've ever crossed the map vertically, though - but Hwy 45 runs from Lake Superior to the Gulf coast, so that would be a good adventure.
For what it's worth, we're considering running the Trans-Wisconsin Overland Route in the fall. It's a route laid out by the adventure biker crowd that runs from the Illinois border to Lake Superior, with as many miles possible on gravel and unimproved roads. Did that in the 2CV as well - nothing really challenging, but dodging the logging equipment way Up Nort was it occasionally exciting.

In the 1910’s and 1920’s alot of folks explored the rugged national parks in their Model T’s before there were roads. Many of the current roads and trails were blazed by Model T’s over 100 years ago. There are a lot of pictures online of these Model T’s doing just that at Yellowstone. It would be interesting for you to go online and find those pictures of Model T’s at famous locations and take the same picture with your Model T in the same position as the Model T in the picture. Of course I would avoid the locations whereby the Model T is just feet from a treacherous cliff a boiling pool or a geyser.

Such as:

I love the color. The flip side is that most folks are not crazy about it. My late wife bought a new leftover '67 Ford Fairlane in that color for a very reasonable price, because the dealer couldn't get rid of it due to the color' which I have always called "Swimming pool green". We had it for years - it was a great car. I'd probably still be driving it, but as is true of most cars of that era, in salt country it was a serious ruster.

I can honestly say that I own a mint Model T.