A few days ago in Omaha Ann took me to a favorite local chain called PepperJax. Somebody decided to turn the concept of a buritto shop — where the customer moves down from station to station as someone builds their burrito — into a philly steak shop. So, you can get steak over rice, in a sandwich, in a salad, and more. It was quite good, with the bun made fresh minutes before my sandwich was built and piled high with steak.
After devouring my sandwich, I was admiring some of the old pictures hanging on the wall when I spotted this interesting photo. I tried to find more information about it, but the story escaped my searches. A caption underneath the picture states the image was of an Auto Camp taken September 23, 1920 at Elmwood Park in Omaha, Nebraska,. On the car, which appears to sport all metal spoke wheels (or maybe part wood), were the following phrases:
1. ONLY A FORD
2. 25,000 Miles in 1 YR
3. OVER – 11,000 M in 3 months
4. over 5,000 towns and cities
5. ______ OR BUST (I couldn’t make out the first word).
The car is pretty strange. There must be a good story here. Below is the whole picture followed by a closeup of the car.
A 1920 Ford of this size would be a Model T and from the few details shown in the picture this car is a touring car … a convertible with a folding top which ran from the windshield frame to just behind the back seat. These older Fords didn’t have an opening door next to the driver’s seat and it appears a removeable panel was attached to the left runningboard spanning from the front fender rearward and halfway up the rear fender forming a storage compartment. Additional storage was the trunk located at the rear of the car where it was common to have an aftermarket luggage rack attached. Wooden spoke wheels were common with one or sometimes two spare tires carried at the rear of the body. The touring car did not have glass sidewindows, in the event of rain or cold weather fabric side curtains were secured between the top framework and the body. When not needed these side curtains were stored behind the rear seat back cushion
aha .. thanks! it was that side board that was throwing me off. I kept looking at the side and thinking ‘boat’, which played havoc with my brain (really, messing with my brain isn’t all that difficult).