Ford and Friends Celebrate Model T Centennial in Indiana: Part 9

Continued from yesterday... A section of the fairgrounds was set aside for “Gasoline Alley” – the spot where car owners could go to repair their

machines for anything from piston problems, a broken axle, or from mishaps.

Roy Reisinger, instructor for the Richmond (Ind.) Career Center, which is a vocational school for auto mechanics, and student Nathan Beach found themselves in gasoline alley for a minor “fender bender” – or in this case a punched radiator. When it had been sprinkling, Beach drove the red speedster a little too fast into a barn and accidentally hit the backend of a Model T pickup.

“This Model T was a high school project. It was a pile of parts when we started two years ago,” Reisinger said. “Thirty students worked on it off and on. Nathan and I had worked on it the last six week to finish it.”

After the centennial party, Reisinger said he'd like to take the speedster to southern Indiana for a hill climb race, then showcased at the Model T Museum for a while before returning to the school where it will be used as a teaching project and updated.

Model T

celebrations will continue in Michigan on Sept. 27, the official date when the “job one” T was built at the Piquette Plant in Detroit. There will be a motorcade of Model Ts and other Ford vehicles that will start at Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn, and will travel to the still-standing Piquette Plant, then journey to the Edsel & Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Point (that would be Henry Ford's son).

From the mansion on Lake St. Clair, the motorcade will proceed to The Henry Ford Estate-Fair Lane, which is the castle-like mansion that was owned by Henry and Clara Ford in Dearborn. From Fair Lane, the motorcade will travel to a celebration at the Henry Ford Museum.

Billed as the “Ford Four,” this will be Ford Motor Co.'s official recognition of the Model T in Michigan.