One Truck's Pedigree, Part 1

The story of my 1931 Model A panel truck begins in Dearborn, Michigan, at Henry Ford's expansive River Rouge complex.

Construction on River Rouge began in 1917 and was completed in 1928. Building B (the Dearborn Assembly Plant) was used to build boats during WWI. The first automobile built here was the Model A in 1927. (The Model T was made in Ford's Highland Park plant.)

It was purchased by a plumber from Detroit at the Robert W. Ford's dealership at 13471 Michigan Avenue. The plumber was my grandmother's uncle, Tom. From the original catalog that came with the truck I gather he must have debated between the "Model A Panel Delivery" and the "Model A De Luxe Delivery." These two trucks are found, respectively, on pages 14 and 15 along with notes in scratched in pencil. The De Luxe, it seems, was going to cost him around $655. The panel truck was $590, but from the notes, it looks like he got it down to $525. He also annotated the measurements, possibly considering plumbing tools and odd supplies as he jotted down numbers.

Whether or not the final decision came down to dollars and sense, or a careful weighing of the practicalities of each vehicle, can't be known for certain, but in the end the panel delivery won the day.

Who Is Victor W. Pagé?

My favorite Model A repair book is the impressively titled Ford Model A Service Manual and Handbook of Repair and Maintenance by Victor W. Pagé. The copy I have is a 1961 reprint published by Floyd Clymer Publications. The original was published by the Norman W. Henley Publishing Co. in 1929, subsequently revised.

Apparently Mr. Pagé was quite prolific and was one of the first people to make a living writing and publishing technical material. He published thirty-three books over his career. For the book I have, pictured here, he took content provided by the Ford Motor Company and shaped with his own organizational genius. Having read a half dozen of the Model A manuals out there, no one has much improved on Pagé's original work.