Every T has a story

 The Ford Motor Company produced over 15 million Model T cars between October 1908 and May 1927.  Many of those cars were the first car that a person or family ever owned.  Often their previous vehicle was a horse.  There are many pictures taken during that era showing the happy new owner posing with the car; often with the whole family.  So every Model T has a story.  Unfortunately the vast majority of those stories have been lost to time.  Families may have some old photos showing their grandparents or great grandparents with their first Model T, but almost always that car no longer exists.  If it does exist, it has been sold many times over the years and the history has been lost.  

That is the case with our 1915 Model T runabout that I previously restored.  It was built, or more correctly the engine was assembled, on September 30th 1914.  The engine serial number can be used to determine its assembly date from the largely intact Ford records.  However, almost all the car's history has been lost.  The 89 year old gentleman that I bought it from bought it from an ailing cousin who was in a nursing home, but had no knowledge of its history.  

It was while I was looking for my next restoration project when this rare Model T came up for sale.  Rare because it was made in November 1911.  Unfortunately, the exact production date is unknown due to a 1970 Henry Ford Museum fire that resulted in the loss of records for that period.  It is even more rare because its complete ownership history was known.  History, especially paper documentation or physical photos, can be easily lost.  This was one of the reasons that I wanted to create this blog; to digitally preserve some of its known history.   

There have only been three prior owners of this car in the last 110 years, so here is some of the information known about them and the car through the years.

"Captain" William F. Markham

Our story begins with William F. Markham.  Born in 1851 in Plymouth, MI, in his early days he worked in some capacity on a Great Lakes shipping boat and that was when he started referring to himself as a "Captain" and wore a captain style hat for the rest of his life.  He started a manufacturing company that made wooden tanks and cisterns in the 1880s, but his fame and fortune came when he picked up the rights to a wooden air rifle design and created the Markham Air Rifle Company.  He improved the design and got a Patent for spring powered air rifle (like used on the Daisy Red Ryder BB gun).  His company was quite successful and it is not surprising that he became friends with another successful businessman in the area, Henry Ford.  Markham's company and Daisy were competitors during this era, with Daisy eventually purchasing Markham's controlling interest in his company.  So in the fall of 1911, Markham and his new wife decided that it was a good time to move to sunny California.  

It was shortly after they moved to California that Henry Ford gave Markham this Model T.  Henry was known for giving a Model T to his friends.  Some of his close friends like Thomas Edison would receive a new Model T every year.  Two of those are on display at different Edison museums; one in New Jersey and the other at his Florida winter residence.

Markham became very wealthy from his real estate dealings around Hollywood after moving to California.  When he died in 1930, his estate was valued at around 2 million at the height of the depression, which would be over $30 million in 2022.  California DMV records from the early 20s show that he owned numerous cars at the time, including this Model T.  The story of the car being a gift from Henry Ford came from Markham's gardener Ed Jenkins and from his long time employee Ben Sprague, whose duties varied from being a chauffer to caretaker of his mansion.  Both meant a lot to Markham, as they were named in his will to receive a monthly stipend after his death.  In Sprague's case, it was for the rest of his life. 

It was from the widow of Ed Jenkins that several pictures of Markham and the 1911 Model T were preserved.  She also recalled that Ben Sprague drove the T from Michigan to California when he came out to join Markham there.  Ben continued to drive the T after Markham's death until it was sold in 1934.

Ed Jenkins, Ben Sprague and William Markham with the 1911 T on a coyote hunting trip in Mojave, CA

Basil Daniels

Markham's widow continued to live in their Glendale, CA mansion until her death in 1937.  Before her death, the Model T was sold in 1934 to Beverly Hills resident Basil Daniels.  He found the car in the show room of a used car dealer and bought it for $100.  Shortly after he bought it he got the history of the car from Ben Sprague who was still living at and taking care of the Markham mansion.  

Basil seemed to be very proud of the car and liked to show it off.  The documentation that came with the car includes a few newspaper articles from the mid 1930's about the car, which was very old even then.  He made at least one fairly long trip in it from Los Angeles to San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico in 1935.  As a couple of the pictures below show, guys have been trying to use cars to try to pick up girls for a long time.  Finding several pictures of girls sitting on the fenders solved the mystery of the denting around the attach brackets for the front fenders...

Living near Hollywood, Basil would rent the car to the movie studios when they needed an "old car".  The last movie that it was used for was a Red Skelton 1951 movie "Eat my Dust", where he got paid $50/day for the use of the car.

Basil worked for a Ford dealership in Hollywood during the late 40s and early 50s.  It was in 1949 was repainted the unauthentic green color that the car still had when I bought it.  After that it was displayed in the dealer's showroom for several years.  There are too many other pictures to include of Basil and others posing or traveling with the Model T.  They are fun to look at though, as he often dressed up as various characters when showing off the car.  Watching him age while going through his pictures is just another reminder that we really don't own anything, but are just caretakers of things for period of time.

Basil Daniels and friend driving the T in San Diego in 1935

Basil using the T to pick up some Tijuana girls in 1935

Some Beverly Hills girls taking their turn to sit on the car

Basil using the T to chauffer movie stars

Basil and other Ford mechanics after the T was repainted in 1949

The 1911 Model T on display at Coberly Ford in Hollywood

On the movie set of "Excuse my Dust"

"Excuse My Dust" scene with car.

Giving a tour around Hollywood.  I guess they were too old to sit on the fenders

Basil looking the T over during a 1975 visit

Chad Champlin

Chad Champlin was a 23 year old Cal Poly student when spotted the ad for a 1910 Model T for sale.  Basil Daniels referred to the car as a 1910 Model T for the 30 years that he owned it, even though the 1921 California DMV correctly had it labeled as a 1911 car.  Chad bought the car, and became its longest caretaker until he passed away in 2017. 

Chad spent a lot of time early on researching, and keeping notes, of what he could learn about the history of the car.  Basil Daniels gave him his numerous photos, newspaper clippings and letters to and from the Edison Institute (now the Henry Ford Museum) in 1938 relating the history of the car and seeing whether they wanted it for the museum.  It was in the correspondence with the Edison Institute that the earliest written history of the car as received from the then living Ben Sprague was captured.  Chad built on that history by tracking down the widow of Markham's gardener, who gave him the previously mentioned pictures of her husband with the car and the original owner.  

Chad also tracked down Markham's son and wrote to him asking if he knew any more about the car.  He had no knowledge of the car's origins, as he did not move out to California until some years later.  He did recall riding in the car and that as the car got older, his dad carried an axe under the rear seat and threatened to smash it to pieces if it broke down again!  

It was during that time that Chad also documented what was missing or not correct on the car when he bought it, and then replaced those with correct year items.  For example, the side and rear kerosene lamps were missing when Basil bought the car and he put ones on from another car.  Chad found correct lamps to replace them.  The only other major items that needed replacing with correct parts was the brass horn, acetylene generator tank, coil box and transmission cover.  

The car was now an authentic enough to be used as an example of a correct 1911 Model T in one of the first Model T reference books, "From Here to Obscurity" published in 1971 by Bruce McCalley.  Chad did not restore the car, which still had the original leather interior and convertible top that had been replaced when Markham owned it.  The only major work that he appeared to do to it was rebuild the engine in 1971.  Unfortunately I do not know much else about the car's history during this time other than he drove it on his honeymoon in 1974 when he married Janice.  It was from Janice that I bought the car last fall.

Chad giving some friends a ride in 1964