I don’t write about old cars as a general rule because I don’t see the point.
Anything with a gearlever mounted on the outside is as relevant today as a
black and white television and a mangle.
Driving a Mr Toad-mobile with its weird controls and its wooden wheels is like
cooking on an open fire. No, really. You don’t write on a typewriter any
more, or hand-crank your phone to get a line, so why have an old car? If it
was any good, they’d still be making it.
Old houses are different. With an old house you can fit central heating and a
PlayStation and then you have the best of both worlds: charm, coupled with a
nice La-Z-Boy easy chair.
Sure, you can do this with an old car too — fit a modern engine and power
steering — but then you are a hot-rodder. And there is nothing on God’s
earth quite so peculiar as that. Not even a coelacanth. Not even a
turbocharged coelacanth with alloy gills and a straight-through arse.
That said, I wish I’d been doing this job 70 years ago. Back then every single
new car — and there were hundreds of them every month pouring out of every
back alley in the land — was completely different.
There was no sense of standardisation as everyone tried something new. Who
says a car has to have a steering wheel? Why not a tiller? Who says the
accelerator has to be on the floor next to the brake? And who says a car has
to have four wheels. Why can’t it have three?
Or 17? These were the glory days of motoring journalism, when you really did
have something to get your teeth into every week. “Right, the new Farnsworth
Hopper. Runs on steam. Has metal tyres. And the front seats face backwards
so the driver doesn’t get rain in his eyes.”
Occasionally something would come along that made sense. The electric starter
motor, for instance, developed by Cadillac. Or the De Dion with its gearbox
mounted on the rear axle — a trick still being used by serious sporting cars
today. Imagine road testing the first ever car to have windscreen wipers, or
a roof. You’d have been amazed.
And imagine what it must have been like when you first tripped over the Model
T Ford, a car you could acquire for less than it cost to buy a horse and run
it for a year. And now you may be wondering what on earth I’m doing.
Well, I’m breaking a general rule and writing about an old car because last
week, for the first time ever, I drove a Model T, and I thought you ought to
know what it was like.
There was an advance and retard lever on the left side of the steering wheel,
which didn’t seem to do much, so I ignored it. Down in the footwell were
three pedals, none of which was the accelerator or brake. The throttle was
to be found on the right side of the steering wheel, where you would
normally expect to find the indicator stalk. There was no indicator stalk
because there were no indicators.
In front of the windscreen, perched precariously on one of the front wings,
was a 12-stone cameraman who was deeply concerned that I might brake
suddenly, causing him to be thrown to his death. He wasn’t cheered any when
I told him not to worry because I had no idea where the brake was.
My driving lesson, from the owner, had been a simple affair. “Oh, I’m sure
you’ll get the hang of it,” he’d said, not having explained what it was I
had to get the hang of.
It was like sitting an eight-year-old in the space shuttle and expecting them
to get it around Saturn. Nothing made any sense, but by jiggling various
levers and stabbing away at a selection of pedals, eventually the Model T
lurched off into the Dorset countryside — with a satisfying bout of
wheelspin.
The exuberant start didn’t break it, however. And nor did my subsequent and
noisy attempts to select top gear. The cameraman didn’t break the front wing
either, even though I spent the entire time driving around a very bumpy
field.
You have to remember that when the Model T was designed back in 1908 there
were only 200 miles of road in all of America, so it was designed to go off
road. That’s mildly interesting. But what’s amazing is that the car I was
driving was 85 years old and it still could.
The toughness of the thing, however, is only the second most important part of
the story. The most important part is the sheer number of Model Ts that
rolled off the production lines in Detroit, Manchester and Canada.
The Volkswagen Beetle, made for 65 years when car sales were exploding around
the world, found over 21m homes. But the Model T, made for only 19 years
when there were few roads, still managed to find 15m buyers. That I find
truly astonishing.
To keep a car rolling off the lines every 10 seconds the main plant in America
needed 1.5m spokes for the wheels every day. And 8.5m bolts. Imagine sorting
that out in a horse-drawn world.
And imagine the money. Within five years of making the first Model T Henry
Ford was the richest man in the world, a title he held until the day he
died. If you had invested $5,000 in the company in 1907 you’d have walked
away, as a handful did, in 1917 with $12m.
Of course, this enormous success was down to the production line. It wasn’t
invented by Ford — Sam Colt was using such a thing to make guns 30 years
earlier, and Oldsmobile was first in the car industry — but there’s no doubt
that the Model T, the most important car ever made, would have foundered
without it.
The problem is that as we wave goodbye to yesteryear and arrive with a
crunching rumble of cogs in the 21st century, the pile 'em high, sell ’em
cheap mentality simply doesn’t work any more.
The philosophy that made Ford and sustained it right the way through the 20th
century no longer applies. Nobody wants a car that’s exactly the same as
their neighbour’s. He gets a Mégane. You want a Mégane Scénic. He gets a
Mégane Scénic. You want a Mégane Scénic 4x4.
Niche marketing is now king as motorists drift away from the supermarket
mentality and into the boutique. This is not good for the production line
and it’s not good for Ford. It’s why it has spent the past 10 years buying
Jaguar, Aston Martin, Volvo and Land Rover — to give itself some badge
prestige.
But it still has to plug away with the blue oval cars, which is why this month
there’s a new Mondeo. Quite what makes it new I have no idea. It has
slightly altered rear lamps and a different stereo but that, so far as I can
tell, is about it. There’s also the option of a new engine. It’s one of the
direct-injection petrol jobbies, which is all jolly interesting, but with a
price tag of £17,500 for the Ghia it costs an awful lot more than the normal
1.8, so probably isn’t worth the bother.
I sound as if I’m being dismissive of the changes, and I am. But the Mondeo
remains one of the best mid-range cars. It’s comfortable, spacious,
surprisingly well made and much more of a hoot to drive than you might
imagine. Think of it, if you like, as a librarian with a G-string under the
tweed. I do, and it helps.
The problem is that I’m talking to myself. You’d rather eat your weekly wash
than swap your Beemer for a Mondeo because you know all about the Ford
mentality. You can have any colour you like so long as it’s black. Well, you
might be interested to hear that all the early Model Ts made in Britain were
blue. And that BMW started out by making Austin Seven vans under licence.
Dig through your history books and you’ll find they upset all your
preconceptions about today’s cars. Take a test drive of a Mondeo, and it’ll
have exactly the same effect.
(On Monday four students came to my house unannounced. They were Tom Lamb,
Patrick Snow, Gavin Johnstone and Amisha Miller. If you’re reading this, I’d
just like to say sorry for being so stand-offish, and thanks for the wine.
It was delishus ...)
VITAL STATISTICS
Model Ford Mondeo 1.8 SCi Ghia
Engine type Four-cylinder, 1798cc
Power 130bhp @ 6000rpm
Torque 129 lb ft @ 4250rpm
Transmission Six-speed manual
Suspension (front) independent with MacPherson struts, anti-roll bar
(rear) quadralink independent, anti-roll bar
Tyres 205/55 R16
Dimensions 4731mm length; 1812mm width; 1429mm height
CO2 173g/km
Fuel 39.2mpg (combined)
Top speed 128mph
Acceleration 0 to 60mph: 10.5sec
Price £17,500
Verdict New changes almost impossible to spot, but remains one of the
best mid-range cars and a hoot to drive
Rating
