Driving a Model T: Ford humor

In common vernacular, the Model T became known as the Tin Lizzie and the Flivver. After 1914, the standard joke became that you could have any color as long as it was black. (Actually, the black paint was an efficiency move. It dried faster than the other colors, so Ford began to use it exclusively.)

Other jokes and bits of humor also sprang up. Here are some from "Funny Stories About the Ford, Vol. II," published in 1915:

• With but three minutes to catch his train, the traveling man stuck his head out the window of the Ford Jitney Bus and shouted excitedly, "Can't you go any faster than this?" "Sure I can," replied the driver, "but I have to stay with the car."

• The Ford owner stopped to get his breath after spinning his motor furiously in three unsuccessful attempts to start it.

A little girl standing on the curbstone watched him intently for awhile and then timidly inquired, "Don't you think it would play if you put on a new needle, mister?"

• Village postmaster (carefully scrutinizing a letter over his spectacles): "Well by heck, folks have gotten so now that they even expect you to deliver their mail by automobile." And he held up a letter addressed to the college son of one of the prominent townspeople, and inscribed "Please For'd."

• Henry Ford, taking some of his own medicine by driving to his country place in a Ford, encountered another Ford stalled on the side of the road. The man seemed to be in distress, and Mr. Ford quickly jumped out and offered his services. When the trouble had been located and corrected, the owner of the machine tendered Mr. Ford a dollar in grateful acknowledgement of his help.

Of course, Mr. Ford refused and when the man insisted he sought to shut him off by telling him that he already had more money than he could use. This was incredible to the other Ford owner, who tartly replied, "Oh, come now, if you really have so much money, you certainly wouldn't be driving one of these Tin Lizzies."

Model T Tips

Some tips from an early "Ford Model T Instruction Book":

• On Receiving Your Car, and before starting the motor, Fill the Radiator with clean, fresh water, preferably straining it through muslin or other similar material to prevent foreign matter getting into the small tubes.

• The first rule in motoring is to see that every part has, at all times, plenty of oil. The second is to see that every adjustment is made immediately the necessity of such adjustment is discovered.