Enthusiasts join Ford for Model T’s 100th birthday

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RICHMOND, Ind. — Poking along a country road in his 1915 Ford Model T, 42-year-old trucker Geff Bland of Springfield, Mo., confessed to how much he loves the iconic automobile.

Bland wrecked one of his Model Ts when he was in his late 20s after the steering wheel came off in his hand, thanks to some stripped bolts.

“I rolled it three times,” Bland recalled. “I’m laying face down in the ditch. The car is upside down. I’m sitting there praying. I’m saying, ‘God, you know how much I love this hobby, how much it is part of my life. I don’t want to die here.”’

Bland is among hundreds of Model T owners who gathered Monday in this eastern Indiana city near the Ohio border to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Model T, the first low-priced car that introduced motoring to the masses.

The event comes at a time when Americans are cringing at the cost of filling their gas tanks and the U.S. auto industry is struggling with plant closings and layoffs. But the weeklong celebration promises to offer some nostalgic balm.

“I’m thrilled to be with the keepers of my great-grandfather’s legacy,” Edsel Ford II, great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, told those attending the opening banquet.

His voice breaking with emotion at one point, Ford said it was the spirit of Model T that made the vehicle so successful.

“It was a product that delivered freedom,” he said. “You are the guardians of the spirit that got the whole thing going. You are the keepers of the flame. As long as we have people who love the Model T, we will never forget what brought us here.”

The gathering transformed the Wayne County Fairgrounds into what looked like a movie set for a motion picture depicting life in the early 1900s. Drivers created Model T traffic jams as they picked their way among barns, giving a friendly “AH-OOGAH” honk of their horns.

Jay Klehfoth, CEO of The Model T Ford Club of America, said owners of the Model T are like a big extended family.

“Sometimes we refer to ourselves as the similarly afflicted,” Klehfoth said. “We recognize we are only temporary custodians of these rolling pieces of history. We’re doing our little piece to try to keep this segment of history alive.”

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