Saratoga News

Cover Story

Photograph by George Sakkestad

It took Roger Zimmerman a year of restoration work and traveling to swap meets looking for parts to put this 1926 Model T Roadster together.

Fit to a T

Members of the Santa Clara Valley Model T Ford Club share a love for Henry Ford's classic car

By Jason Sweeney

These old cars look like clunkers. They start with a crank. They're loud and they rattle. They have wooden wheels. The accelerator isn't a pedal on the floorboards but a lever on the steering column. They have bad brakes.

Still, 79 years after the last of these clunkers rolled off the assembly line, the Model T still has its fans.

"They are a heckuva lot of fun," says Allan Greenberg. Greenberg, of San Jose, is a past president of the Santa Clara Valley Model T Ford Club. He owns two Model T's--a 1923 Touring and a 1926 Speedster. "We just love to drive them. People break out into smiles whenever they see them."

Every month, members of the Santa Clara Valley Model T Ford Club assemble their Model T's in a specified location. Then they all head out for a drive in their old cars. "We have a specific place to go, a place to visit and a place to eat," Greenberg says.

The tours usually last a few hours on a Saturday or Sunday--a caravan of Model T's winding through back roads throughout the Bay Area. On July 4, a convoy of Model-T's rolled down to Sveadal, a Swedish park and resort outside Morgan Hill. Members of the Model T club enjoyed a hearty picnic breakfast at the Swedish picnic ground on the Fourth of July before heading back home. "Wherever we go, we attract a lot of attention. People get a big kick out of seeing our cars."

The Santa Clara Valley Model T Ford Club has more than 120 family members. In addition to the monthly tours, the club plans one big yearly tour to such places as Yosemite or Paso Robles.

"We are mostly tinkerer, car-guy types," Greenberg says. "We do spend a lot of time working on the cars. The Model T offers us a social outlet as well. We have similar interests and enjoy being around each other."

The Jorgensens

For the Jorgensens of Los Gatos, Model T's are a family affair. Peder and Maria Jorgensen and their two sons, Ivan, 23, and Hans, 21, are all members of the Santa Clara Valley Model T Ford Club. The family owns three Model T's and two classic Lincolns.

Peder grew up in Saratoga. His father was a schoolteacher who bought land in Saratoga and built a house there. "My brother and I have always been interested in old cars," Peder says. "We would follow them and ask the owners about them. A guy at our church had an old basket-case Model T. My brother and I traded some old engines and two canoes for it. By the time I was 17, I was hooked."

It isn't winning prizes at car shows that keeps Peder interested in old cars. He's a civil engineer by trade and a born builder. As a boy, he and his brother rebuilt their father's car. They spent their childhood building forts and mini-bikes.

"A lot of people in the Model T club have jobs where they use their hands," Peder says. "They like to tinker. That's probably why they got into those kinds of professions in the first place."

While there are a lot of engineers and mechanical types in the Santa Clara Valley Model T Ford Club, there are exceptions to that rule, Peder explains. Doctors, real estate agents and others with non-mechanical backgrounds are members, too.

"There are a lot of characters," Peder says. "These people lead interesting lives because they are doers. To me, a doer is someone that likes to get out and do things and not just watch the big screen. They are hands-on people."

For Peder, the main attraction of owning old cars is driving and touring. "That's what I enjoy most. We take the back roads. I like seeing different parts of the country that are less traveled."

On July 4, the Jorgensen family drove two of their old cars down to Sveadal with the Model T club.

"I didn't expect just because I was interested, both my sons would be interested, too," Peder says. "It's great."

Los Gatos High School graduates Ivan and Hans picked up some of their old man's mechanical inclinations while growing up. After graduating from high school, Ivan studied mechanical engineering at Cal Poly. He now works for an air conditioning company in San Leandro. Hans is currently studying criminal justice at San Jose State University, and while not as interested in the old cars as his father and brother, he is still good mechanically, Ivan says.

"When we were kids, my family would dress up in 1920s clothes, and we would go on tours," Ivan says. "The appeal is the history. My grandfather grew up on a farm and told stories of first learning to drive a Model T." One of those stories involved Ivan's grandfather running off a road and crashing into a tree, and then swearing never to drive a Model T again. But he kept driving them and left two Model T's to Peder.

Today, Ivan is the membership coordinator for the Santa Clara Valley Model T Ford Club. He likes driving the family's 1926 Model T Speedster. "It's not too difficult to drive," Ivan says. "It's pretty forgiving. It's interesting. There's no manual transmission. There are three pedals, but none are gas." And because the Model T didn't have modern brakes, but instead was stopped by a band around a drum in the transmission, the Model T club requires brakes to be installed on the wheels to increase safety.

"In the Model T club, everyone is willing to help someone else," Ivan says. "A lot of people have been working on Model T's for so long, it's second nature."

The Tin Lizzie

At the turn of the 20th century, the United States was a country of dirt roads traveled by horse and buggy. The automobile was a new and relatively rare sight on American roads and was affordable mainly for those with deep pockets.

Henry Ford combined new mass production methods with a rugged and affordable design, and the result was the Model T. Production began in 1908 and continued until 1927. The Model T brought the automobile to the middle class. The car's reliability and affordability made it the most popular car in America and the second most successful car of all time after the Volkswagen Beetle.

"Ford built about 15 million of them," Greenberg said. "Of the 15 million that were built, there are still quite a few left."

Because so many were built over such a long period, the Model T today isn't exactly a rarity. Model T clubs exist across the nation and around the world. A cottage industry of parts suppliers serves the Model T market.

The simplicity of the Model T made it popular when it was in production, and that simplicity keeps it popular today. The car is perfect for a hobbyist who likes to tinker. Cars today have become so complex and computerized that they have become off-limits to your average hobbyist with grease on his elbows putting parts together in his garage.

And while some may get the impression that collecting vintage model cars is a rich person's pastime, restoring and collecting Model T's is a relatively cheap hobby. Model T's can be bought and assembled today for less than it costs to purchase a Honda Civic.

Car guys

"Henry Ford built the best car that lasted the longest," collector Roger Zimmerman said, "and the Ford Company is still going where some of the other ones just didn't make it."

Zimmerman, a retired service manager for a General Motors dealership, and his wife Pamela live a few miles up Big Basin Way from downtown Saratoga. Behind the Zimmermans' house is a large metal shed filled with cars and machinery. A 1945 Ford tractor sits under a tarp by the shed. Roger uses the tractor to grade the road to his house.

Pamela says Roger didn't start construction of their house until the shed was finished. "The reason he bought the property was for the shed," she says.

Roger spends a lot of time, especially during the winter months, working on cars in his shed. Roger owns a 1928 Pontiac Cabriolet, a 1947 Bentley, a 1965 Corvair, a 1937 Ford street rod built from scratch and a 1926 Model T Roadster.

"This was his hobby before I met him," Pamela says.

Roger is from Nebraska, where his father owned a combination mechanical garage, filling station and blacksmith's shop. "When I was a kid, I just kind of lived down there at the garage. I learned by watching."

Roger got a taste of California when he was stationed at Fort Ord while in the service. He returned to Nebraska, but moved back to California in 1968.

He had bought a dilapidated Model T back in Nebraska in 1962 but had never done anything with it. When he and Pamela decided to get married, Roger decided to fix up the Model T for the wedding. After a year of restoration work and going to swap meets looking for parts, the car was ready for the wedding. Roger and Pamela took their wedding vows and then drove off in the restored 1926 Model T.

"I enjoy the old cars," Roger says. "It's a lot of fun. People just stare at you and give you a thumbs up. At car shows people really appreciate what you've done. It's like you own a piece of history."

Jim Cullinane, also of Saratoga, was a rocket scientist before retiring. He worked as a weapons developer for Food Machineries Corporation and as a mechanical engineer for Bechtel.

Like Zimmerman, Jim has mechanics in his blood. Cullinane's father was a mechanic. "That's how I learned about cars," he says. "We reworked a lot of cars when I was growing up. But my mom didn't want me to be a mechanic. She said, 'Why don't you become a mechanical engineer?' "

In 1980, Jim was looking for a hobby. He had always been interested in cars and when a friend suggested Model T's, something clicked and he's been busily working on them ever since.

Today, he owns a 1922 Model T Speedster and two 1926 Model T Roadsters. One of the Roadsters had been a dilapidated wreck with a tree growing through it, formerly owned by a farmer in Eureka.

Like a true rocket scientist, Jim uses his mechanical skills to add extra horsepower to his Model T's. "They go faster than they should," he says. "Model T's originally had 20 horsepower. I have an 80-year-old car with 200 horsepower."

When he's not fixing up his Model T's, he is writing books about them. He has written nine books with partners. "It's a very niche market," he says. "I make about $2,500 a year on book sales, but they sell all over the world.

"The Model T is a very American car, but it is a simple car that appealed to the masses, not just in the United States, but all over. And if you put in a little oil, a little gas now and then, and grease where it belongs, they last a long time. If you take care of them, they'll last another 100 years."

Look for Model T's from the Santa Clara Valley Model T Ford Club, as well as other classic cars, at the 50th Anniversary Saratoga Parade on Sept. 24.