In our first year we built "Model A," selling the runabout for eight
hundred and fifty dollars and the tonneau for one hundred dollars more.
This model had a two-cylinder opposed motor developing eight horsepower.
It had a chain drive, a seventy-two inch wheel base--which was supposed
to be long--and a fuel capacity of five gallons. We made and sold 1,708
cars in the first year. That is how well the public responded.
Every one of these "Model A's" has a history. Take No. 420. Colonel D.
C. Collier of California bought it in 1904. He used it for a couple of
years, sold it, and bought a new Ford. No. 420 changed hands frequently
until 1907 when it was bought by one Edmund Jacobs living near Ramona in
the heart of the mountains. He drove it for several years in the
roughest kind of work. Then he bought a new Ford and sold his old one.
By 1915 No. 420 had passed into the hands of a man named Cantello who
took out the motor, hitched it to a water pump, rigged up shafts on the
chassis and now, while the motor chugs away at the pumping of water, the
chassis drawn by a burro acts as a buggy.
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