1927 Ford Model A Roadster

Seven months after Henry Ford shut down his factory on 26 May 1927, the first Model A was on its way to a happy customer. During that production pause Ford moved his assembly line from Highland Park, Michigan, to his new, vertically integrated factory on the River rouge in Dearborn, where iron ore from the Mesabi Range could be unloaded from Ford freighters, turned into Ford iron and steel, and then transformed into Ford cars and trucks that rolled away on tyres made with rubber from the Ford plantations in Brazil.

Model A was a sensation in America, owing in part to the fact that Henry’s son Edsel Ford, believed in design. Edsel saw to it that the bodies were elegantly turned out with belt mouldings pressed into the body sides and pinstriped. Wings were painted in contrasting colours, and some bodies were also two-toned.

In 1929, its best year, the Model A sold to 1,951,092 customers. Altogether Ford made some 4,500,000 Model A four-cylinder cars, then in 1932 offered an eight-cylinder engine in the same chassis for only $10 more than the cost of the slightly restyled Model B four-cylinder model. From 1935 ford continued to use the Model T and A-pattern chassis but changed bodies every two years: the deluxe model of one year would become the standard model the next, while new deluxe styling would be developed under the direction of Eugene ‘Bob’ Gregorie, Ford’s first styling director.

These extracts are taken from Auto Legends: Classics of Style and Design by Michel Zumbrunn, text by Robert Cumberford which was published in October by Merrell