Yesterday, we learned about Jay Klehfoth, a man who loves his four (yes, count them) Model Ts. We also mentioned the upcoming celebration on July 20 that focuses on these immortalized Ford cars. Here is some more information about that celebration and a little more about Klehfoth himself.

The Model T celebration is a week-long event that takes place in Richmond, Indiana. It usually attracts about 1,000 of these classic cars. Some of the Model Ts are coming all the way from Australia and other far off regions. Klehfoth is hoping that his efforts will put this year’s celebration in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the “longest single-model car line.”

In addition to having hundreds of Model Ts in Richmond, you’ll also see an airplane show with planes from the 1930s. Have you ever seen an old-fashioned baseball game? You will if you attend the July celebration. You can also watch other events that will make you think you’ve been transported to a simpler time in our history and culture.

That’s one of the allures for the Model T. According to Klehfoth, the “world looks a lot different at 25 mph in the open air.” With a slower moving vehicle, you can “stop and smell the roses,” so to speak instead of driving by at 75 or 80 mph. That’s why Klehfoth often takes neighborhood kids for a ride in one of his Model Ts. It gives them a chance to see what cars were once like and, to some degree, how life was much simpler then. He hopes his children and other younger generations will continue the Model T celebration for many years to come. Henry Ford would certainly be proud, wouldn’t he?

One of the first Ford cars ever created recently celebrated 100 years on the market. And to help make that a special event, 89 of these popular vehicles had a rally in Edinburgh last week.

Gathering 89 Ford Model Ts was a special event in itself. It was the largest gathering of these iconic cars ever in one place. Owners came from all over the region with their Model T to join the rally.

The Model T represents a piece of automotive history that helped shape the industry into what it is today. Henry Ford made this the first car that was affordable to the masses by introducing a less expensive way of producing them – the assembly line. Until then, cars were individually created by workers and it took a lot more time and more money to create each vehicle. The Model T, or Tin Lizzie as many people called it, reached the market in 1908 in Detroit, Michigan. Within months, it became the car that literally put “America on wheels.” I wonder where we’d be today had the Model T never come along.

The week-long rally started at the Bute House in Charlotte Square at 1:00 p.m. It wraps up this week at Kelso after travelling through places like Selkirk, St. Boswells, Peebles and other popular places throughout the region.

One of the most famous (and infamous) Ford vehicles of all-time is the Model T. Yesterday, we looked at some of the interesting facts that surround this well-known automobile. Today, we’re going to give you some more facts that you might enjoy.

• The first Model T units could only travel at a speed of 45 mph. They could get between 13 and 21 mpg with their 20-horsepower, four-cylinder engines. The typical weight of a Model T was 1,200 pounds.

• Henry Ford’s Model T was his ninth model of a production vehicle.

• Ford produced and sold more than 15 million Model Ts before officially ending its production. Ford held a small ceremony on May 26, 1927 to mark the end of production. This was nearly 20 years after Ford introduced the vehicle on October 1, 1908.

• Henry Ford produced and assembled the Model T with his mass production capabilities. This was the beginning of the five-dollar workday and lower car prices, so more people could afford to purchase one of these cars.

• For the production of the first Model Ts, it took about 12.5 hours per unit. After several streamlining procedures, Ford was able to condense it down to about 93 minutes per unit.

• The original units did not come equipped with windshield wipers, doors, gas gauges or speedometers.

• Ford didn’t allow customers to buy its products on credit because Henry Ford felt credit was an immoral practice.

• During the early 1920s, Sears and Roebuck offered more than 5,000 accessories that customers could use for their Model Ts.

It’s astonishing how one single car could make such an impact on the auto industry and the culture as a whole, isn’t it?

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When Henry Ford’s Model T ruled the planet, it was the most beloved and the most hated vehicle on the roadways. On the one hand, it was the first vehicle that was affordable for “the masses.” As a result, people named it “The Common Man’s Car.”

But on the other hand, there were so many problems with it that it was given the nicknames of Jalopy, Jitney and Tin Lizzie. Some even referred to it as the “Universal Car” because you could use it to pull old tree stumps out of the ground, store grain, generate electricity and even plow a field with a simple conversion. Here are some more facts about this forerunner to the modern vehicle that you may or may not have known.

• The first Model T sold for about $850, but the price was later reduced to less than $300 for the basic models. Henry Ford saved on production costs and he passed this savings on to the consumer.

• Model Ts were produced in Detroit on a street called Piquette Avenue. Production later moved to a new Highland Park plant in Michigan in 1910.

• All of the Model Ts was built on the same chassis, but there were essentially nine different body styles.

• Henry Ford’s assembly line was the single greatest contribution to vehicle mass production. As a result, he was able to produce about 300,000 Ford vehicles during 1914 with only 13,000 employees. Other companies combined only produced 280,000 units during the same year with more than 66,000 employees.

Do you think these were interesting? We’ll have some more intriguing facts tomorrow!

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