While working on Ghost Birds, one of my greatest thrills was getting to drive a Ford Model A roadster very much like the one Tanner drove.
Television producer/writer Steve Dean and his crew were producing an hour-long Heartland Series program about the Ijams Family for Knoxville's WBIR-Channel 10. They needed the car for one of the scenes and found one locally.
Tanner bought his used Model A in August 1936 for $175 and ultimately sold it in December 1939 for $45. Today, they're worth a good deal more.
I found the Model A remarkably easy to drive. No thrills. Just two pedals: clutch on left, brake on right. The accelerator was a silver button, reachable by your right foot. There were only three gauges to look at: odometer, temperature and voltage. At the top of the austere dashboard was a little peep hole where the driver could actually see the level of gasoline in the tank in front of him. Did you catch that? The gas tank is located between the driver and the engine.
I grew up in a Ford family. Learned to drive in a old Fairlane, owned several Mustangs and still have my late father's Crown Vic. The one thing I noticed with the Model A was the lack of amenities, i.e. creature comforts, or comfort in general. In the 1930s, automotive amenities had not been invented yet. It was the height of the Great Depression, there were few amenities of any kind.
There was very little room. I felt like one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, nestled inside my capsule. It was a lot of fun to take out on an afternoon drive, but I found myself wondering: How could Tanner take this for 40,000 miles? And many of those were on bumpy, unimproved roads.
I have no idea the color of Tanner's Ford Model A. But they did come in a wide variety of pleasing shades unlike the Ford Model T, which was only available in basic black. What was the saying back then, "You can have any color you want as long as it is black."
The Model A was a different story although most of the time, Jim's was mud-colored.
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