Related Model A Ford History
As an interesting side note to the issue of the fragile convertible top, I will add another related story. My Dad was born in 1921 and grew up on the home ranch north of Geraldine Montana. He worked together with Grandpa and Grandma for many years who never owned a pickup truck. They had a 1929 Model AA Ford truck and later added a 1937 International D-15 tonner to the fleet. After WW II, Dad drove 70 miles to Great Falls Montana and paid $35 each for a 1929 Model A Tudor sedan and a 1929 Model A business coupe. It was like a sport coupe with no landau irons and had a trunk rather than a rumble seat. Dad drove them home and then did something terrible to each of them.
Dad had a large Lincoln electric arc welder generator powered by a 1934 Nash Advanced Eight straight 8 engine. He fired it up and used it to burn the back off of the business coupe. He then built a respectable looking wood box for it and had his very first pickup truck. He usually drove it to the field and hauled fuel and supplies in the box. He mentioned working in the field one day before a severe hail storm came along. The tractor had no cab so he hid behind one of the rear wheels of the tractor until the storm stopped. He then walked back to his Model A pickup and found that the hail storm had completely shredded the canvas top covering. Since the car now was "topless" he simply tossed his jacket into it through the open top.
I still have that pickup which was built it January of 1929 so it still had the old style 7 tooth sector steering gear. Dad mentioned that the steering gear was worn out so bad that the steering wheel had about an eighth of turn of slop in it. That made it hard to drive so his trick was to drive near the edge of the road so the car would pull to the right and he would have to pull back some on the steering wheel. It is a wonder that he never went into the ditch.
Once he changed oil on the engine and forgot to tighten the oil drain plug. Thank goodness the car had an oil pressure gauge on it and he happened to notice the needle jumping around. He walked back to where the trail or oil started, found the oil drain plug, walked back to the dead Model A, installed the oil drain plug, filled the engine with tractor motor oil and continued on to the field.
Dad removed the Tudor sedan body from the other car, shortened the chassis, mounted the rear axle rigidly to the frame, installed an auxiliary transmission from a burned up 1929 Chevrolet and mounted a 25 foot long paddle elevator above the other Model A. He added a flat belt pulley between the Model A transmission and the Chevrolet transmission. By putting the Model A transmission in gear and the Chevrolet transmission in neutral, he could use the power from the Model A engine to drive the paddle loader and use it to load grain. He used it in harvest to unload trucks and well as later in the year to empty the grain bins and load trucks when hauling the grain to the grain elevator in town. This "grain loader" as we called it was quite an innovation before the grain augers became popular in the early 1950's.
7 Videos Of This Car In Action On Snow
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrqqso1ZtEYfVDoOeXEXeGg/videos
A Video Of Goodyear Making These Tires In 30's
The following link is to an original Goodyear promotional film from the late 1930's. It shows how pneumatic rubber rear tractor tires are such an advantage over the older wheels with steel tires. It is almost 30 minutes long and well worth watching. The later part is fascinating because is shows how those early tractor tires were made in Goodyear's factory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1caZGv_2Pf4
This car was featured in one of the September issues of "Old Cars Weekly" back in 2014. You can click on the link below to view that article entitled "Car Of The Week" :
http://www.oldcarsweekly.com/car-of-the-week/car-week-1930-ford-model
This car was featured on pages 22 and 23 of the May-June 2010 "Model A News" magazine published by the Model "A" Restorers Club. This car was also mentioned but not shown in the history of the Quammen family in the book "Our Times, Our Lives” A History Of Dawson County. This interesting book discusses the history of the country around Glendive Montana and includes a section describing Lindsay Montana. I recently found a copy of that book here on eBay so that copy goes with this car. I later learned that this car is shown in a different section of that book that is devoted to the residents around the town of Bloomfield Montana. It is shown with the history of the Milton J. Hill.
I forgot to mention that this car is nearly 6-1/2 feet tall which makes it difficult to transport in a typical enclosed car trailer that has a vertical rear door opening of just over 6 feet. When I haul this car in my enclosed trailer, I remove the front wheels and install a pair of 1935 Ford 16" wire wheels and tires. That drops the front of this car enough so that it can be driven in and backed out of my trailer with a bit of room to clear over the convertible top. The last photo of this listing shows this gem with the small tires in front. They make it look very strange - somewhat like a drag car - low in the front and ready for takeoff on a drag strip. Thanks a lot, Bob Woodburn - phone 406-799-1847 in Bozeman MT
On Jan-30-15 at 00:05:18 PST, seller added the following information:
Please Note :
I am sorry that I neglected to include a bit of interesting history regarding Leonard Quammen and his wife Eva. From the book "Our Times, Our Lives” A History Of Dawson County, I copied the following information:
"During their early years of marriage Leonard and Eva resided in Lindsay where they were engaged in farming and ranching. He was also a rural mail carrier for 43 years. He would often speak Norwegian to some of his patrons. When drifts of snow made roads impassable by car he used a sleigh and a team of horses. In time he had a Model A Ford to which he added special high wheels to ride over the drifts. He enjoyed his mail delivery and was known for his dedication and promptness. He retired in 1965 and they bought a home at 1039 North Meade Avenue in Glendive."
That is a nice short summary of Leonard's career even if it is not correct and credits him with adding the tall wheels and tires to this car. This was probably written by Leonard's son and or daughter in the mid 1980's and they may not have been old enough to remember his buying this modified rural mail delivery car from the Hill family in 1941.
My quest for history regarding this car is always ongoing. I received a call just this afternoon from Leonard's grandson who now lives in the Spokane area. He has been very helpful in helping sort out some of the details of the Quammen family. He also mentioned that his aunt has a photo of his mother and her brother setting on the hood of an early car. I am hopeful that I can get a copy of that photo. I am also hopeful that that photo shows those two children setting on the hood of this very special vehicle. What a prize that would be !!
I guess this listing is going viral. Yesterday morning a friend sent me the following link to a Yahoo listing of this car:
https://autos.yahoo.com/news/bigfoot-model-mail-truck-stuff-legends-200019446.html
This evening I did a Google search and found the following site:
http://truckyeah.jalopnik.com/the-oral-history-of-an-amazing-1930-ford-model-a-off-ro-1588212852
There are many interesting comments on the above site with one exception. It is very interesting to note how stupid some people really are. Now I understand how our country is in the mess it is today. Some idiot wrote the following comment which I find to be very offensive:
"Such a shame. How could anyone own something so awesome and not take care of it? Not cool. This beauty needs a new owner, asap."
I take this comment to imply that I do not take care of this car which is definitely not the case as far as I am concerned. I very carefully padded and wrapped the very fragile 75 year old convertible top on this car when I hauled it about 300 miles from where I bought it in Havre Montana to where I live in Bozeman Montana. I later used an enclosed trailer to haul it to the Model A Restorer's Club national meet in Merrilville Indiana and back several years ago. I then used the same trailer to haul this car to the car show in Billings Montana last June and to the West Yellowstone Montana car meet last July. This car is stored in the safest, driest and therefore the best rental warehouse in the Bozeman area whenever it is not on the road in an enclosed trailer. I rent three 20' by 40' units in a row there and none of the vehicles in any of the units have batteries hooked up in them. I don't store solvents or fuels there and always drain the horrible modern day gasoline from this car and my 1914 Model T Ford roadster when they are stored there. I block up the front and rear axles on this car to preserve the tires whenever it is in storage.
If a fire breaks out in one of the neighboring units, it will have to go through another unit I rent before I can get to this car. The interior walls of that truly exceptional rental warehouse are not a single layer of steel sheeting but double sheeted with sheet rock which will help to keep any fire from spreading very far. We have a very dry climate here in Montana so things do not corrode at all like they do in about 3/4 of the rest of this country. The convertible top on this car was tattered a bit the day I bought it as you can seen in the video of me driving it out of the auction building and it is in no worse condition today. I keep a blanket on the seat cushion and backrest when I am driving it to help preserve what is left of the very fragile original upholstery. I have to wonder what the above mentioned wizard would have me do differently or better to take care of this car? Thanks again and good luck bidding on this unique piece of Montana and U. S. Mail history. Bob Woodburn - phone # removed