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Old 08-01-2013, 05:23 PM   #6
dlshady
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Default Re: The true history on Edison's Model A...

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Quote:
Originally Posted by steve s View Post
The car Edison received is on display at the new Model A Museum. The hood is open and a spotlight is shining on the A1 stamped on the motor. Posted nearby is the famous picture of Henry applying the stamp. The display car is a phaeton, which would agree with the history cited above. The informational plaque indicates that no effort was made to maintain the originality of the car over the years that the Edison family used it (imagine! Thomas Edison, or family members, tinkered with an old Ford--who'd a thunk?).

Steve
Both are true statements, but if you'll compare the length of the number pad in the photo to the length of the number pad on the engine in the car you'll see that they are different lengths. As a point of reference, the bolt spacing of the two water inlet bolts is 2 3/8", center to center, so it's obvious that the engine in the photo has a 2" number pad whereas the engine in the car is 2 3/4". The fact of the matter is, whether anyone wants to admit it or not, the engine in the car is restamped. The car on display may or may not be the morphed version of the one originally gifted to Mr. Edison, and I do understand that it was updated by Ford Motor Company (and possibly by Edison's people as well) over the years, but that isn't the debate here. What's in question is whether or not Mr. Edison actually received the car with engine number *A1* (versus some other low number), and the fact that a car with an engine stamped *A1* is being displayed as his doesn't prove anything because that engine is absolutely, positively, I'll run nekkid through Central Park if I'm wrong, NOT an October 1927 engine.

Fact is, if I were willing to deface one of my good original 4 digit blocks I could have an engine stamped *A1* before the sun sets tonight, but it doesn't make it original.

Perhaps the engine had been changed by the time the car was returned to Ford Motor Company in 1943, so what documentation did the restorers use to determine that *A1* was actually the correct number to stamp on the block other than just "Well, it's gotta be A1 cause that's what I've always heard"? So we're back to the original question.
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