Ford A Tudor year built

[Orbec]

Hello to all and seasons greetings.
I am new member. Just purchased in France what appeared to be a 1930 Ford A. This vehicle I believe was assembled in France. The engine number is A2779448. Cannot find any chassis number. I found the original tag in the engine compartment with a serial number 9983. The registration certificate was first issued in 1928 in France.
Please help with estimating the year built.

[McMimmcs]

welcome to the barn. The experts will soon advise you exactly when your Tudor was built.

[Bob C]

That's a January 1930 engine number.

[WTSHNN]

That engine was stamped on January 15th, 1930.
http://modelahouse.com/cgi-bin/enumbers/numdate

If you wanted to dive deeper into determining the assembly date range of the whole car you may want to look at some of the research articles done by Steve Plucker and especially the gas tank and frame articles.
http://www.plucks329s.org/

[Orbec]

Thank you Bob
Thank you much WTSHNN – very good research material. I will take my time to go thru Steve Plucker’s info.
You all are great and hope to one day post my complete research on my car.

[Chuck Dempsey]

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Welcome to the 'Barn', Orbec! Stay safe.....

[katy]

The registration certificate was first issued in 1928 in France.

How could that be on a 1930 vehicle?

[DBSHELTON]

Originally Posted by katy

How could that be on a 1930 vehicle?

International Date Line?? LOL

[McMimmcs]

Please post a picture. Obviously something amiss with the engine date and the 1928 registration. Wayne

[Orbec]

Hello Katy
This is a question I have asked for a while- one answer is that registration was not so organized back then maybe.
The car has few accessories that were made in France other then that all look imported from the US.
Attached is the main tag attached to the car as well as tag that indicated that the car was imported.

[juke joint johnny]

It looks like you have the original engine that came with the car as the number lines up with that plate on the firewall !
That is rare these days as most cars have had the engine changed in the past.
I see you also have the French Marchal headlights that were fitted to Model A's in 30-31

Are the numbers on your paperwork the same as on that plate ? If yes I imagine maybe the paperwork was lost at sometime and when they applied for new paperwork they didn't know the year of the car.

Nice Car and Welcome to the Barn

[Orbec]

Yes, paperwork all matches the numbers. And yes I do believe that at one point there was a problem with registration (apparently a common issue back then here in France).
Yes, I do find it to be a nice car and somewhat special (I do have other cars in my collection that are all original matching numbers) this Ford is a first with mixed elements from different counties.
Thank you for your complement.

[rotorwrench]

Ford plants in the USA didn't have tags like that one on the body. You are fortunate that you have one that does and that it matches the motor. The motor number was what was stamped onto the frame when it was mated with one here in the USA. Motor numbers were controlled by the Dearborn Michigan home of the Rouge Ford main plant where most of the engines were produced. Ford of Canada is the only other manufacturer that produced engines & had its own numbering system and it had unique prefix letters beginning CA. Ford vehicles produced outside the USA were generally knock down assemblies crated for shipment with final assembly performed by plants set up in specific countries like France in the model A era. Canada supplied some of the Commonwealth countries but not all. It was later on in the 30s before the Ford SAF manufacturing picked up and the Koln plant in Germany.

The registration papers may have been more of an application for import licence which would have started in late 1927 or early 1928 on a blanket sale of model A vehicles to France. It looks to be a 1930 by design and the numbers seem to confirm that. I wouldn't worry so much what the paperwork gives for a year model as long as it can be registered for legality of ownership. It looks to be in pretty good condition.

[Orbec]

Thank you rotorwrench- interesting and informative detail.