CEDAR RAPIDS — Jeff Fossum only had to drive his 1924 Ford Model T a couple of miles Wednesday evening to get to the AAA office in Cedar Rapids.
Anne McAtee and her brothers Chuck and Ted Hathaway drove their family's 1924 Ford Model T over 1,000 miles from New York City to Cedar Rapids as part of the 100th anniversary of the 1O millionth Model T Ford produced in 1924.
Fossum was one of dozens who showed up at AAA to witness the arrival of an original 1924 Ford Model T now making a cross-country trip, for the Museum of American Speed's Sea to Sea in a Model T event.
In June 1924, employees of the Ford Motor Co. drove the 10 millionth Model T from New York to San Francisco via the Lincoln Highway. The centennial event means to replicate that journey.
“A lot of the original Lincoln Highway has been torn up and rerouted over the years, so we've tried to stay on the original route as much as we can, but in some cases, that's not possible,” said Chuck Hathaway, 65, of Naperville, Ill.
Left on June 2
While the car is not the original Model T that made the cross-country trip 100 years ago, it has been modified to replicate what the original would have looked like when it made the trek, mostly on gravel and dirt roads.
The Hathaway family and museum volunteer Mike Vaughn departed from Battery Park in New York City in the Model T on June 2 and traveled through seven states before reaching Cedar Rapids on their sixth stop.
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The group will travel another roughly 2,000 miles before reaching San Francisco, crossing through another six states and making 10 more scheduled stops.
The average Model T can reach a top speed of 35 mph, but Chuck Hathaway said the family's Model T has had its engine modified to reach 45 mph. The vehicle was initially supposed to arrive in Cedar Rapids on June. 7, but the car had mechanical issues that delayed the arrival.
"It blew a piston and a camshaft, so we had to take the whole engine out and fix it, which set us back around four days," Chuck said.
The Model T had been in the Hathaway family for nearly 60 years after the trio's father, Dr. Alan Hathaway, found the vehicle hidden in an old barn. Alan and his family would recreate the trek twice for the 50th and 75th anniversary of the sea-to-sea journey in 1977 and in 1999.
“Our dad drove it all the time when we were kids, but we never learned how to drive them until we were older when we went to a Model-T driving school,” Anne, 63, of Davenport, said. “The Model Ts are much different than today's vehicles.“
With its simplistic design, manual crank start and lack of safety features, the Model T looks nothing like the typical modern automobile seen on highways today. The Model T driven by the Hathaways also features three pedals: the left pedal for the clutch; the middle pedal for reverse; and the right pedal for the brake.
McAtee said the family donated the vehicle to the Museum of American Speed three years ago, and it has been on display at the museum's Lincoln, Neb., location since then.
McAtee said the museum plans on having subsequent cross-country trips in the Model T for the 125 and 150th anniversaries.
“It's important to keep the memory of this iconic car alive,” Fossum, 70, of Cedar Rapids, said. “There are days where I question the usefulness of owning a Model T — because it’s not the easiest thing to take care of — but then I drive it to a gas station, and I get so many people to come up and ask me about it.
“That's what makes it worth it for me.”
About the Model T
The Model T, first produced by Henry Ford in 1908, is often regarded as the first affordable automobile that made car travel accessible to middle-class Americans.
Originally, it took more than 12 hours to assemble a single Model T. The introduction of the assembly line drastically changed this, reducing the assembly time to about one hour per car.
Because of this increase in productivity, the price dropped from $850 in 1908 — about $29,017 in today’s dollars when adjusted for inflation — to less than $300 in 1925, or about $4,775 in today’s dollars.
When production ceased in May 1927, slightly more than 15 million Model Ts had been produced. It was the most-sold car in history before being surpassed by the Volkswagen Beetle in 1972.
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