By Marshall Gordon
Photos by Rimas Zailskas
Dan McIntyre remembers the first Model A he ever owned. "It was back in 1950—a 1931 coupe with a rumble seat. I put a car-top carrier on the roof and took my brother and two friends to Key West, Florida, and back," the retired Asheville native says. "We were gone for two weeks and didn’t have a bit of trouble. I wasn’t a collector back then…it was just a used car."
He enjoyed his ‘31 Model A so much, he bought a 1929 Tudor sedan a few years later and kept it until he went into the Navy in the mid-‘50s. "We drove it to Long Beach, California, in 72 straight hours. And that was before Interstates," he continues.
Although he’s owned a lot of cars in the intervening years, McIntyre’s fondness for the Model A has never waned. In the early ‘90s, he had a motorcycle, which his wife did not like at all. She suggested to McIntyre that if he enjoyed the Model A so much, why didn’t he just sell the motorcycle and get one? Which is exactly what he did. In 1992, he bought a green ‘31 Model A coupe with black fenders and a rumble seat. A ‘31 pickup truck and another ‘31 coupe came next, followed by a ‘29 Tudor sedan, a ‘31 four-door Phaeton and a ‘30 Tudor sedan—in parts that he plans, eventually, to put together.
Among the reasons that he decided to start collecting the Model A are its simplicity of design, renowned dependability and easy availability of replacement parts. "In my and a lot of other people’s opinion, they were probably the best cars you could buy back in their time. There were more sophisticated cars that could run faster, but the Model A had low-tech but high-quality parts and superior design and engineering you couldn’t find anywhere else. Any I own now that are running well, I wouldn’t hesitate to drive to California and back. They’re that dependable," he adds.
Introduced in 1927, the Model A is probably one of the most recognizable cars of all time. It succeeded Henry Ford’s seminal Model T "Tin Lizzie," which had been in production since 1908. Newly designed from the ground up, the Model A was an advanced car for its day. Its 200.5-cubic-inch, 4-cylinder engine produced 40 horsepower at 2200 RPM and propelled the Model A to a top speed of 65 miles per hour, blazing fast for its time. It had a three-speed sliding gear transmission with one-speed reverse, four-wheel mechanical brakes, double-action shocks, an electric starter, dash light, rear mirror, amp meter, gasoline gauge, speedometer and rear stop lights and tail lights—features usually found only in higher-priced cars. All this came in seven body styles and four colors, at prices considered low for 1927.
Asked if there is anything unusual or special about his Model A collection, McIntyre replies, "No. It’s just a car that Henry Ford made and probably the cheapest you could buy at the time, but also the best." Yet, when he talks about his favorite…the ‘31 two-tone green-and-black four-door Phaeton…his eyes light up. "For a Model A Ford, it would be right near the top. An A-400 convertible is probably worth a little more, but the Phaeton would be second.
"The man I bought it from also had a more expensive [Auburn Automotive] Cord. I asked him, if it was zero degrees out, which one would he bet on? He answered he’d never get the Cord started, but the Model A would turn over twice and start." That sealed the deal on the Phaeton. "I just decided that I wanted it and negotiated a deal. The odometer showed only 72,000 miles."
The Phaeton was in excellent shape when McIntyre bought it and he hasn’t had to do much to it, other than to take it out for a drive nearly every day when the weather’s nice. "This is not a show car, where you haul it around in an air-conditioned trailer. I just love to drive it. It feels good. The top comes down. You can see everything and I like the feel of all that fresh air—that’s why collectors have nicknamed these Phaetons ‘old wind bags,’" he says with a smile.
