There was a Ford in my Future!

My father once said, only half jokingly, that 1929 was a bad year: the stock market crash, the highest water on the Apalachicola River and my birth. I am not certain he ranked them in any particular order. But there was always a Ford in my future.

Homer Hirt, Sr. returned from France with the American army in 1919 and picked up his life where it had been interrupted. His job at the Ford dealership in Tallahassee was waiting. James Messer, the dealer, believed in the young man, and soon made him manager. Then the opportunity to become a Ford dealer came. He had a choice: Cedar Key or Chattahoochee and he chose the latter.

In 1923 he opened his dealership in a rented building, using $2,300 that he got from sale of some land in Tallahassee. He met a young lady, sold her a used car, taught her how to drive and then married her. There was always a Ford in the future of the Hirt family, up until we sold our dealership in 1971. I once owned a Buick for a short time, and I felt that H. B. Sr. was looking down at me, a frown on his face and wishing me a blown engine. I sold it as soon as I could. Never doubt the power of your father, even if he is dead and gone.

He believed in Henry Ford and the company he founded. Mr. Ford was the first to use a true assembly line, and the first to pay his workers $5.00 per day. Since the Model T eventually sold for about $250, his workers bought Fords. The proliferation of the Model T got credit for a road system in our country that was second only to the Interstate highways of modern times. The “T”, as it was called, was built to fit the ruts that were worn into the ground by farm wagons. When macadam roads began appearing Ford narrowed the width of his cars, but this did not fit the still-unpaved roads around Tallahassee, so the Ford dealer there set up a woodworking shop to turn out spacers that placed the wheels where they would still fit the ruts. He also built “station wagons” for the wealthy plantation owners of the area.

Receiving a train car load of Model Ts was intriguing. The autos came in two sections: the body and the chassis. The body was loaded in a boxcar at an angle, leaning against one wall. The chassis was loaded on the other side, also leaning. The dealer would gather up some husky men, and they would carry the chassis out and then place a body on it and someone would then drive it to the dealer to have the two sections bolted together.

The Model T was soon outclassed by other cars, so Henry Ford decided to build a finer car. He went to the financiers for retooling money, but they turned him down. To solve the problem he built thousands of Model Ts, shipped them Collect on Delivery to dealers, who then had to borrow money locally to pay for them. It worked for Henry, but was rough on small and large dealers alike. The Model A was born in 1929 and was an instant success, at least until the Depression set in, and sales slowed to a slow walk. The A was followed by the Model B in 1932 and a couple of years later by the first Ford V8.

Henry Ford did not like to be beholden to anyone, so he purchased his own iron and coal mines, a rubber plantation in Brazil and built automobile parts and tires himself. He transported raw materials in his own ships. At one time over 90 per cent of each Ford was done this way. His first Model T engines were purchased from the Dodge brothers. Even though their engine shop was only a few miles across Detroit from Ford’s assembly line, they were required to securely pack them in crates, with holes drilled in certain locations. At the plant the wood slats were taken apart and lo!, old Henry had his floorboards!

Our dealership, known as Chattahoochee Motor Company, survived the Great Depression, but in a very tenuous way. Financing of new cars was almost impossible, and few folks had the ability to save the amount needed to purchase a new Ford. The town of Chattahoochee, home of the Florida State Hospital, survived, also. The common wage for men was $30, with some housing provided, and three meals a day. This was in exchange for twelve hours of work per day, sometimes for fourteen days in a row. We went broke twice in that decade, but recovered.

The Model T was known for being simple to work on. The transmission was a planetary one, with the foot pedals engaging the gears, much as a hydraulic system later worked automatic transmissions. The first ones were hand started with a crank. This led to broken arms, short fuses and a lot of cuss words. If you started up a very steep hill, and you had less than a full tank of gas, you turned around and backed up, since the fuel was gravity flow.

Henry Ford supposedly said that a customer could have any color Model T he wanted, as long as it was black. This came home to me at the age of four. I longed for a pedal operated fire truck. Christmas came and there under the tree was a fire truck! But it was black, and I did not understand the reason for some years: it was a used one, and my father only had black paint in his service department. It worked well, though, but was not as pretty at the Model A fire truck that he had sold the City in 1930, a truck that is still under a roof at the City Hall.

Henry Ford did not believe that a six cylinder engine could be balanced, so he waited until government specifications required six cylinder cars. Until the onset of World War II the name “Ford” was synonymous with “V8”. In 1939 the bootleggers of Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia and our part of Florida found that the Ford V8 business coupe was the ideal transport for the thousands of gallons of illegal hooch that came from the mountains and swamps and flowed to the cities. Races between the bootleggers and the revenue officers became legendary, and the drivers soon took to dirt oval tracks on Saturdays, racing each other, mostly driving the cars that allowed them to make money on the twisting back roads. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and modern drivers owe their NASCAR sport to Junior Johnson and others that came from this beginning.

So, what did a person pay for the automobile of his dreams? In April of 1939 a man could walk into H. B. Hirt, Sr’s. dealership and put down cash or a check for $790.00, and drive out in a new Ford 85 horsepower V8. It would be a coupe, and he could have a choice of three colors, Black, Gull Gray or Jefferson Blue. If he would be satisfied with a 60 horsepower V8 he could pay $40 less, but he sacrificed speed and power. Looking for white sidewall tires? Then dig deep, and throw down another $20.00. A radio would cost you $55.00, and you can imagine that not many folks were music lovers for that price.

The banker may walk in and choose the Deluxe Ford, and opt for the basic colors or Coach Maroon, Dartmouth Green or Folkestone Gray. The Deluxe model cost him $850.00. Throw in two more doors and a back seat and he could select the fabulous “Fordor”, and his wife could ride alongside him, work the radio and the kids could sit in the back and count the cows, all for $935.00.

Soon our nation began war production, and Henry Ford made bombers, tanks and jeeps, and Homer Hirt, Sr. saw no new cars. He survived off service to his customers. He even sold horse saddles and wooden wagon wheels. He must have done something right. The dealership lasted for over forty seven years. And I do not believe that I could ever feel right without a Ford in my future!