1912 Ford Model T Touring

This car, Lot 1009, sold for $4,675, including buyer’s premium, at RM Auctions’ Fall Auburn auction in Auburn, IN, on August 30, 2018. It was offered without reserve.

Henry Ford’s final car company finally got enough momentum (and financial backing) to get underway in 1903, and it kept going with cars that were slowly moving up the price brackets. The company was financially successful, but what Henry really wanted was to build a car for the everyday person. As such, his Model T was launched in 1908 at an introductory price of $825 for a runabout.

Knowing he could build more cheaply with mass production, he introduced the moving assembly line to the auto industry in 1914. With the ever-increasing economies of scale, efficiencies in production meant gradual changes to the T, the most obvious of which was going from exposed brass radiators to ones enclosed in a painted steel shell in 1917. By 1924, the basic Model T runabout attained the lowest selling price for any new car in history at $265.

Our featured car predates several important Model T milestones, and it’s largely original — which is why it was a phenomenally good buy.

Original non-matching numbers

In 1912, all Ts were still built in Detroit, but not yet on a moving assembly line. This was even before they were all painted black. The vast majority were dark blue that year.

While there was some parts swapping done at some time, the majority of this car is as it was built by Ford. Most notable is the engine block and serial number plaque on the interior side of the firewall; as with all 1912s, these numbers do not match, but are both correct for the year. The engine number on this car — 131349 — dates to July 1912, per Ford’s records.

For the length of Model T production, the serial number was always considered the engine number. When the Model T was introduced, a patent plate was affixed to the dashboard, and throughout early 1911, both the engine and the patent plate’s numbers matched. As replacement engines began to be set aside and car production increased, the tag numbers started to intermittently not match the engines during 1911. By 1912, none of them matched, but Ford didn’t really care because they didn’t track the patent-plate numbers.

Also through this time, part of the function of the patent plate was to cover an unused carburetor adjustment hole on the firewall. As all firewalls were made to be used for left- and right-hand drive, Ford simply flipped the drilled-out board that was the firewall and mounted components on the side that fit over the steering column. The unused adjustment hole that went nowhere sat behind the tag. With the firewall changing in 1913, and for the sake of manufacturing efficiency and cost savings, the tag was deleted. Bodies had a unit number stamped into the wood structure, depending upon which assembly plant built it, but it was not the engine number.

Value and demand

This T was markedly older than the vast majority of its surviving peers, and it was very original, so you might have assumed it would’ve brought more money across the auction block. RM had their estimate at $12,000 to $18,000. However, this car had a couple of factors working against it.

First, it was among the first cars on the auction. Not just for the day — it was the third car out for the whole Labor Day weekend event. As such, it was in front of a light audience of bidders.

Second is interest in Ts in general, which started to wane in car people way back in the 1960s. The T-bucket street rod is a classic example of making Grandpa’s slow fuddy car into something cool and more relevant, adapting it to a more modern use. Today, it seems that the vast majority of under-30-year-old buyers don’t want anything to do with cars such as this. And that will be a problem for all genres of collector cars as they — and we — age, regardless of your collector-vehicle interests.

The thing to appreciate about a car like this is not the simple fact that it’s old. It’s that, despite the odds, it’s still here. Despite car dealer scrappage programs in the 1920s (when used cars were piled up and publicly burned to help stimulate new car sales), World War II scrap drives, and the overall post-war era of Modernism at the expense of our past — let alone the effects of time and nature — it’s still here over a century later.

Mechanical escape

For those of us — regardless of age — who can appreciate a working mechanical device that’s over a century old, these early Ts are relative bargains. For those who are mechanically inclined and want to get away from a world of computers, restoration or maintenance of a simple mechanical machine can be a superb way to relax.

So if you have a chance to pick up a Brass Era Model T on the cheap, by all means do it. If you want to restore it into a concours lawn ornament if it’s too far gone to preserve, have at it. If you just want to get it running and make it relatively safe as a driver, better yet.

And while a lack of interest has kept prices reasonable on these old Fords, curb appeal is another story, as these once-ubiquitous Ts now stand out. Based on the short time I was inspecting this car while it was sitting and waiting to get hauled out of the auction, I can tell you that you’ll be surprised by the amount of looks a Model T will generate. This was parked next to a red 1969 Plymouth Road Runner convertible, and during my 20-odd-minute informal survey, more people stopped and looked at the T than the muscle car by a ratio of 2-to-1.

Regardless of what the new owner intends to do with it — preserve, restore, or just drive it slowly — this was a great buy on a piece of rolling Americana.

(Introductory description courtesy of RM Auctions.)