In our granary on our farm was an interesting looking old auto license plate. It was green and white in color. It was nailed over a rat hole in the wheat bin. It was a heavy plate made of porcelain and was dated 1913. I asked my dad one day where that plate came from and he told me it was the license plate off his dad’s first auto, a 1913 Model T Ford touring sedan. In the Summer of 1913, Roelof Essenburg and two of his cousins from Borculo, Enne Kraai and John Bouwman Sr. took a train and went to the Ford plant in Detroit to each purchase a new Model T Ford. They were priced at $600 F.O.B. Detroit, which meant you had to pick up the car there and drive it home yourself. You could choose any color you wanted as long as the color was black. They had to drive slowly at first, 15 miles per hour as the engine needed to be broke in. The 1913 Model T was the last year it was made before Henry Ford began the first auto producing assembly line starting in 1914. The assembly line helped lower the price of Model T to $300 in the following years. Ford produced 15 million Model T cars from 1908 to 1928.
The Model Ts were started with a hand crank. You had to retard or set the spark located on the steering column before attempting to crank it. If you failed to do this, the crank would sometimes kick back so hard you could break your arm. The doctors called this arm fracture a “Ford Fracture”. The Model T could go up to 45 miles per hour at top speed. The car was equipped with side curtains to protect from the elements.
I often wonder if the three new Model T’s were driven to church the first Sunday after they were purchased. If they were, I’m sure there were some kids who couldn’t wait to go to church that morning.
I still have the 1913 license plate. It is now 101 years old.
/s/ Bob Essenburg