 The
antique cars in the museum date from 1902 to 1929. They
have been lovingly restored to running condition and all
come from western Canada. The Bell Family continues to
display Gordon’s collection of antique autos in the
Ghost Town for all to enjoy.
Antique Fords
Half of the cars in
the 3 Valley Gap Antique Auto Museum are Fords, this
makes sense because by the 1920’s Ford made half of the
cars in the world. Most of the Fords in the collection
are Model T’s. The Model T was the most common car on
the road at the time and Ford made 15 million of them.
Included among the Fords is a white 1912 Model T.
Everyone has heard the saying that "people could have
Model T Fords in any color, so long as it's black," but
that wasn’t true for the first few years. From 1908 to
1913 they actually
 came
in four additional colours – red, white, green and blue.
In 1914 Ford limited the colour choice to Japan black
because it was the only paint that would dry fast enough
for their production timetable. Ford made five different
types of Model T’s – pickup, roadster, sedan, two door
and the touring car.
Henry Ford’s first vehicle was the quadracycle, a
buggy-like vehicle that had four bicycle tires - built
in 1896. He would go broke twice before experiencing
success building Model T’s in 1908. Ford built his cars
from scratch, buying the ore ingots to produce the steel
and iron and owning his own sawmills for lumber. This
was the only way he could control the entire assembly of
his cars.
In the early 1900’s there were approximately 2500
automobile manufacturers
in North America. The majority of
 them
went out of business, while others either merged
together or were taken
over by other car makers.
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