1931 Ford Model A

Henry Ford did not want to build the Model A. He believed the Model T was the ultimate automobile and held onto that belief until falling sales and a shrinking market share left him no choice. Ford shut his factories down for nearly a year to develop the replacement, and when the Model A finally arrived in showrooms in December 1927, the public stormed the dealerships. Over four million were eventually built, and 1930 was the most refined year of the run, arriving with new sweeping fenders, a redesigned radiator, smaller wheels, and a longer hood that gave the car a more elegant and modern look than the versions that preceded it. This one is finished in blue with a dark blue top, black fenders, yellow wire wheels, and whitewall tires, and it wears those 1930 updates with a presence that is impossible to miss.

Under the hood is the 201 cubic inch inline four backed by the three-speed manual transmission. The Model A was the first Ford ever built with a conventional clutch, brake, and accelerator arrangement, the same layout every car still uses today. Henry Ford had stubbornly resisted conventional controls on the Model T for years while the rest of the industry had moved on, and the Model A was the car that finally brought Ford into alignment. It runs on simplicity and starts and drives the way a well-cared-for ninety-five-year-old car should.

Inside, the tan cloth bench seat is clean and well matched to the warm character of the cabin. Wood interior trim runs throughout, and the rumble seat in the rear is one of the most charming details a pre-war car can have, a body style feature that disappeared entirely from American automobiles by the early 1940s. A rear chest trunk with leather straps finishes the exterior with a period-correct travel detail that suits this car perfectly.

The exterior chrome trim, yellow wire wheels against the blue body, and the whitewall tires combine into a presentation that turns heads at every show and on every street this car drives down. Ford sold nearly 1.16 million Model As in 1930 despite the country entering the Great Depression that same year. People found a way to buy them anyway, which tells you everything about how much this car meant to the people who wanted one.

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