classic car

Scot Sertic's 1921 Model T
Ford Runabout

WRITTEN & PHOTOGRAPHED
BY Dean MacDonald

One of Lancaster resident Scot Sertic’s fondest boyhood memories is the times when he and his grandfather, Richard Barrows Simms, would drive his grandfather’s 1921 Model T Ford Runabout convertible. “My grandfather, who was a Lockheed Skunkworks machinist in Burbank, lived in Glendale,” Sertic said recently. “On weekends, he and I would get in the Model T and take off. He would, of course, do all the driving on the streets, but when we went down through Verdugo Park and the Glendale College parking lot, he would let me drive. I was 10 at the time and I actually learned how to drive in this Model T.”

This nifty and rare 1921 Model T Ford is made rarer because it’s totally stock and has been in Scot’s family generation after generation.

“Originally my grandfather’s family lived up in Modesto,” Scot said. The Model T initially belonged to my grandfather’s cousin’s father. The cousin inherited the car and my grandfather got it from him. A few years after my grandfather moved to Los Angeles, he went back up to Modesto and drove the car down to Glendale.”

Scot, who was born in Panorama City and grew up in various cities around Los Angeles County, has been a Lancaster resident for seven years. He has two grown children who live in Kentucky and Texas, and one granddaughter. He works for Mr. Handyman, a national home repair franchise owned by Alex Aguirre in Lancaster.

After Scot’s grandfather passed, his grandmother gave the car to Scot.

The car is priceless, he said.

One of the most unique features of the 1921 Ford Model T is that nothing has been altered or restored; it’s exactly the same as it was when it rolled off the assembly line. It has the same, black, buggy-style leather seat (in excellent condition) that it had when it was new. In fact, it still has the original wooden floorboards, which are easily removed in order to work on the transmission.

The exterior is the original Jet Black enamel, and is in remarkably good condition for an 87 year-old car.

The convertible top on the Model T is stretched over a metal frame (similar to a carriage top) and folds up and down manually; the one windshield wiper also operates manually; early air-conditioning and/or wind deflection is provided by a split windshield; and there is one door, on the passenger side.

Yet another unique feature is a collapsible, four-sided glass lantern with a candle holder in it and a chain to hang it up. An ideal item for reading a map at night or working on the engine in darkness. The little lantern folds up and is housed in an oval-shaped tin container.

The drivetrain on the 1921 Model T also is completely stock and all-original. Simple, functional and very efficient and reliable, this drivetrain is a testament to the true engineering genius of Henry Ford.

Powered by a four-cylinder engine, and fed by a single-throat carburetor, it produces about 42 horsepower. The car has a magneto and a 6-volt battery system. This was the first year the electric starter appeared on the Model T, although the traditional hand crank, which sticks out of the front of the car and is used to manually turn over the engine to start it, is still in place on this model.

As many of our older readers well know—including Scot’s brother—the hand crank was often a dicey proposition to operate. If the car backfired and the cranker wasn’t holding the crank handle in the correct position, the crank could whip around in about nine-tenths of a nanosecond and provide a painful compound-fracture object lesson!

The transmission on the Model T is a unique planetary gear setup that offers low, high and reverse (hence the three pedals sticking out of the floorboards). It also had a lever, on the left of the steering wheel, that served as the emergency brake and neutral. On the steering wheel are retard and advance levers that are used to adjust the engine’s spark.

Have you ever seen an old-time film that shows a Model T backing up a steep hill? That was done for two reasons—reverse gear had a lower ratio than first gear and the gas in the 12-gallon gas tank (located underneath the driver’s seat) was gravity fed into the carburetor. Consequently, turning around and backing up a hill ensured a steady flow of gasoline to the carburetor.

Other features of this 1921 Model T include leaf-spring buggy-type suspension that provides a remarkably comfortable ride and was ideal for America’s roads back in 1921, which were mostly deeply rutted and full of mud; a removable “turtleback” trunk, which could be temporarily replaced with a pickup bed for hauling items; the original 21-inch hickory wood spoke wheels (which can be tightened); mechanical brakes; the stock electric headlights; and the original Stewart speedometer gauge (this was before the Stewart-Warner company formed and produced the gauges most car buffs are familiar with).

This gauge, incidentally, shows 111,948 miles.

“But that was probably when the speedometer cable broke,” Scot said. “Actually the only thing that doesn’t work on the car is the speedometer and that’s due to a missing cable.”

So, if you like classic automobiles, keep an eye out for Scot and his late-grandfather’s all-original and totally stock, 1921 Model T Ford Runabout convertible, which is an absolutely prime example of early automotive design.

It is a car that readily shows the transformation of the carriage as it evolved into the horseless carriage and then into the beginnings of the modern automobile. This timeless little car is functional, efficient, reliable, an education on wheels and loads of fun to look at and drive.