While browsing through Autotrader, I stumbled across this little beauty sitting on a dealership lot in Calgary. I’m tempted to head down there and ask them if they’d be willing to let me take it for a test drive.
I don’t know how many of our wonderful Hoons out there have had the opportunity to take a T-bucket for a spin; my friend’s father has one that I finally talked him out of for an afternoon about ten years ago, and I still remember the experience vividly. This is the kind of car that any Hoon who has the opportunity should take for a spin at least once.
During the 1950s and 60s, in those heady days of stoplight drag races and evenings at the Drive-In (a sort of culture that was still enduring in my hometown when I turned 16 and got my license), the ’55 – ’57 Chevy Bel Aire is widely considered to have been the stoplight champion until the muscle car wars started. The legend is perhaps slightly overstated, however.
Certainly the Bel Aire was the prettiest car on the strip, and a respectable performer to be sure, but it was the Model T that was the hot-rod champion. With virtually no weight to pull around, and a chassis-drivetrain combination that was as interchangeable as lego, it was an outrageously simple car from which to extract some pretty frightening performance. Every engine shop was playing a game of one-upsmanship with its neighbouring shop to see who could extract the most performance out of the simple Flathead V8. That, combined with the fact that virtually any high-school kid with a job could afford to buy an old Model T meant that it was a likely candidate for a stoplight racer.
And having driven one, I can testify that it was definitely a respectable performer. While perhaps not the best when the corners come along — meaning you’re more likely to just understeer right past the corner than to actually make the turn at anything faster than a walking pace — it is hard to describe any vehicle with a more exhilarating kick-in-the-chest level of acceleration.
So while the rest of the automotive blogosphere seems to be foaming at the mouth about a bunch of Toyotas nobody gives a rat’s ass about experiencing “unintended acceleration”, you could head over to Calgary and experience some “intended acceleration” that might remind you why you shouldn’t be driving those worthless automotive appliances in the first place.
1923 Model T For Sale in Calgary
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16 responses to “1923 Model T For Sale in Calgary”
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Man, you Albertans really know how to have fun.
The coolest thing at a dealer lot in Onterrible is this:
http://stcatharines.kijiji.ca/c-cars-vehicles-cla… -
There's a lot to love about this car; the Rat Fink-inspired gear lever, the general T-bucket goodness of the thing. My big issue: that hideous steering wheel! I hate chain link steering wheels anyway and the blue anodize makes it even worse!
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I'm with you on the steering wheel.Besides ugly, they're frickin' dangerous. I nearly broke a finger backing up a car that had one of these things in it.
In a T-bucket you must have a bakelite wheel with a suicide knob mounted at 2:00. -
I agree. The rest of the car looks very decent, but that steering wheel kind of ruins it.
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The reason it has the 8" chain steering wheel is so you can still drive with handcuffs on.
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I'm with Brian, there's a lot to love there, but the chain steering wheel is just a little too '64 Impala lowrider for my taste. No cupholders though, where am I supposed to put my beer? I kid, I kid. I can just drive with one hand.
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Ugh…Chevy engine. Why? Why do people insist on ruining perfectly good Fords with a Chevy engine? I'm this close to buying a Chevy and dropping a 351W in it and putting a giant-ass "Powered by Ford" graphic on the back window.
Wow, I'm awfully ranty this afternoon.-
Personally, I just can't get the new 5.0 out of my head. Every mil-swap candidate car I see has me thinking, "Would a 5.0 fit in there?" I want to buy one and drop it in my crippled W123 to build the Ultimate Sleeper. That LT1-powered Ferrari 250 2+2 from a while back? The 5.0 would be sooo much better at pissing off the Ferraristas; like a cudgel of historical irony right upside the head.
I know, I know, it just wouldn't work in this classic t-bucket hot rod. But still … -
Prepare for head asplosion:
http://stcatharines.kijiji.ca/c-cars-vehicles-car…
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I nearly had the wife talked into getting one last year.
Until I eventually realized that her "Sure, OK" really means "What are you going to sell first?." -
Grade A awesomeness!
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I've got a pretty serious jones for one of these. It didn't help my condition several years ago when the National T-Bucket Association held their meet in nearby Sierra Vista and convoyed to Tombstone. They closed off Allen (Main) Street and let the T's park there. Must have been fifty of them, from rat rods to gorgeous show quality chromed rods to plenty of nice solid cars like this, somewhere in between. It was a thing of beauty, I'll tell you, and the sound that afternoon when they all cranked up their engines at once and started to leave town was a symphony. The best part of it was that most of the owners, from all over the country, had actually driven their cars to the event. Hardly any trailer queens.
http://www.nationaltbucketalliance.com/events/200… -
Oh you silly Canadians and your American icons..
Hotrods roam free, and even street legally
<img src="http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/ae195/Texan25Idiot/nifty50ees/N50S014.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"> -
I so desperately want one of these. The living in the city, I don't have a garage and I really don't have the money now, excuses really screw me up but one day, one day…
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Get rid of the chain steering wheel and the plethora of anodizing in favor of something crafted from wood and milled aluminum and it would suit me fine. This is the neat thing about T-buckets and other rods, they can be a personal reflection of the dreams and desires of the owner/builder. That said, if you're like me, with grand visions limited but skills and tools, buying a solid build from someone else and personalizing it can be a far more efficient move than starting with a pile of rust and catalog parts.
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Hate me all you want, but I think it looks ridiculous.
This is how you do a Ford hotrod:
<img src="http://bringatrailer.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/1929_Ford_Highboy_Roadster_For_Sale_Salt_Flats_1.jpg">
![http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/ae195/Texan25Idiot/nifty50ees/N50S014.jpg"](http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/ae195/Texan25Idiot/nifty50ees/N50S014.jpg"){kind=link}
![http://bringatrailer.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/1929_Ford_Highboy_Roadster_For_Sale_Salt_Flats_1.jpg">](http://bringatrailer.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/1929_Ford_Highboy_Roadster_For_Sale_Salt_Flats_1.jpg">){kind=link}
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