MTFCA Forum

I've enjoyed the great photos of the 09 tourings posted recently. But I've noticed that all of the touring cars appear to be painted dark green.
In fact when I did a Google search for original 1909 Model T Ford photos and wasn't able to find one photo that looked like the car was painted red. I understand the photos are black and white, but it seems to me that the lighter red against black trim highlights would show up as a contrast.

My question is, were the majority of the 09 tourings painted dark green?

It just seems odd that most of the restored 1909 tourings are red, but all of the old original photos I've found look dark green........ Does anyone have an original photo that shows the contrast? I suppose that it could be the old photos darken with age and light exposure, and some are indeed red.

Is there a list of how many red tourings we're built in 09 compared to green?

This is a question that should be answered by Mark Osterman, or Steve Jelf. They know a lot more about the history of photography than I do. What I do know, is that some of the more common methods and films used in those years did react to red almost as black. Green, being a mix of red and yellow also tends to be dark. Modern films react differently to red, and give a bit more contrast. So, even though the red to our eyes seems much lighter than does the green? To the early film, they both look more like black.
I believe the prevailing opinion is that most of the first couple thousand touring cars were originally painted red. The opinions I have read about touring car colors seem to follow that green was showing up more and more around May or June of 1909, while red did continue to be on some touring cars through the rest of the model year.

That is how I understand it.

Good evening Michael and Wayne. After looking at hundreds of photos of '09s I would say there are too many dark looking ones. Some of those have to be red. The only ones that show up light were likely gray.
Rich

Here are pics of a town car and you can see the beads on the fenders appear to be black. In any case they are much darker than the field area of the fender. In the contrast of color pics I’ve seen, it is harder to see the contrast of black/green than black/red. So if I had to guess, I would say these pics are black/red. Your opinion?

Would loved to have seen how in the hell did they got that car outta there !!!!!