Driving a Brand New 1928 Ford Model A

I had the once in a lifetime opportunity to drive this car:

The car had 201 miles on it when I got behind the wheel. I did not drive it for long. This is by no means a road test. It is my brother-in-laws car. He inherited it from his grandfather. No, his grandfather was not the original owner. But the car is a family heirloom. He just finished having it restored a couple of months ago. While the family was over his house for Thanksgiving he gave rides to everyone… and had me drive it. He said someone besides him needed to know how to drive it.

It is a four cylinder with a three speed manual transmission with no synchronizers. That means double clutching, and no downshifting. Here’s how it goes. First flip the gas valve. Next there is a floor start button. You push that with your foot while working the manual choke lever. Once the car is started you press the clutch and put it into first gear. Take off like any normal manual transmission equipped car. Now for the fun part. Step on the clutch, move the shifter to neutral, release the clutch long enough to get the trans and engine speeds to sync, then press the clutch again and move the shifter to second gear. Hopefully without grinding the gears.

I did grind the gears a couple of time and had to shift from 1st to 3rd a couple of times for fear of grinding going into second. But after a few minutes I did start to get the hang of it. It is really in the timing of how long to stay in neutral with the clutch released before going for the up-shift. To downshift you basically come to a complete stop and start over.

This was definitely an E Ticket attraction. Supposedly the car can go up to 46 mph. I never went above 35, but it was more fun at 35 than any modern car.

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