The famous Model T Ford, the car that changed personal transportation around the world, was introduced in 1908. Ford Motor Co. built sedans, roadsters and open touring cars that were dependable and inexpensive. Buyers, particularly farmers and business owners, began to modify their vehicles so they could haul supplies and equipment in addition to people.
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That didn’t slip by Henry Ford unnoticed. In 1917, nine years after that first Model T, Ford Motor built the Model TT truck. It used the Model T cab and engine and had a 1-ton payload capacity. The standard model had an engine and transmission, four tires, a steering wheel and not much else. With no driver seat, a box could be used.
Owners or outside vendors would modify the truck based on an owner’s needs. Ford sold 2,019 trucks in the model’s first year at $600 each or about $15,866 in today’s dollars and sold 735,020 Model T’s. As a comparison, Ford sold 1,081,777 trucks in this country and only 273,653 cars in 2023.
After the Model TT came the Model AA (based on the Model A car), followed by the Model BB in 1933. The truck business had become very competitive. The new more capable flathead V8-chassis trucks were modified by outside vendors or the owners to be used as delivery trucks, ambulances, mail trucks and stake trucks.
Ford marketed these trucks heavily in rural areas, promoting the idea that customers could use them on farms during the week and drive them to churches on Sunday.
This issue’s featured vehicle is a 1934 Ford 1-ton truck that was originally owned by Borden’s Dairy Delivery Co. in San Francisco. It was purchased as a chassis and engine with no cab. Until the cab was built; to drive the truck a driver would still have to find a wooden box or some other item to sit on to steer the truck.
The cab of the truck was built in the Borden’s Dairy shop in San Francisco. The cab is made of wood, and the bench seat is literally a wooden bench with a thin cushion for the bottom and 90-degree straight back. There were three models of this truck, and this one is the shortest of the three.
This 90-year-old truck still has the original motor and floor-mounted three-speed transmission. Later, hydraulic brakes and turn signals were added for safety reasons.
San Francisco is known as the city of seven hills, and many of those hills are pretty steep. In those days, Ford was still using mechanical brakes and, of course, there was no power steering, so carrying up to a ton of dairy products and stopping on a hill could be a challenge for the driver.
The truck is now owned by Walnut Creek’s Shel Perham, whose father, George, and his grandfather owned and ran Borden’s Dairy. Perham’s father bought the truck when it was retired in about 1943. They had a fleet of trucks that delivered milk, cheese and other dairy products in San Francisco.
Later, George, who recently passed away at age 95, used the truck on a cattle ranch and with a construction company he owned in Los Altos. After its work years, the 1934 truck was used for family weddings when the bridal party would be hauled from the church to the reception location. Now it’s just used for fun.
“It’s so fun to drive around without the doors,” Shel said. “It’s a good town vehicle now.”
I was surprised when after the interview, Ann, George’s 91-year-old wife, wanted to drive the 90-year-old truck. She climbed into the driver’s seat beside Shel, her son, and started the truck. She drove it for about 10 minutes on the streets of Walnut Creek, with no “jack rabbit” starts, came back and parked it at the curb with no difficulty.
With a big smile on her face she said, “Wow! That was fun.”
I think the family now has an additional driver for the truck.
Have an interesting vehicle? Email Dave at MOBopoly@yahoo.com. To read more of his columns or see more photos of this and other issues’ vehicles, visit mercurynews.com/author/david-krumboltz.