*The information in this document is provided by The Standard Catalog of American Cars. The full citation is listed below including where to find this information and more.

This is a 1929 Ford Model A, one of the most widely produced cars in history and the most widely produced car of the 1920s. Nearly five million Model As were created in total during its four-year life, so it’s not uncommon to find car collections with a Model A. Sometimes called the A-bone among rodders, this Ford model brought the company a second wave of huge success and led it to dominate the automotive industry.

As the Model T began being phased out in the late 1920s, Henry Ford faced a new problem. He needed a better car, something that people would buy. He focused on what is now called DFM—design for manufacturability—the ease of assembling the mechanical elements of a car in a streamlined way. He believed he needed to rely on drop forgings, but that would not work with his new DFM program. The engineers at Ford eventually talked Henry out of his DFM plan to drop-forge the components of the car, thus increasing production costs and raising the price for the end-user. Although the results veered away from Henry’s original plan, the Model A ended up bringing him his second great success in the car industry and helped forge the road to what Ford has become today.

The new Model A first became available to the public in 1928, in four standard colors. By February 4, 1929, one million Model As had already been produced due to the increasing efficiency of Henry Ford’s assembly line in Detroit, Michigan. In 1932, the Ford Motor Company ended production on the Model A, just before reaching that five-million production mark across all body styles. The Standard Coupe only accounted for 178,982 of those units.

In the second year of production, new body styles emerged throughout the calendar year. 1929 was the largest production period in the Model A’s lifecycle, with 1,507,1322 units of production. The first one million Model As were completed on February 4, 1929. The two-millionth Model A was constructed on July 24, 1929. A million automobiles were produced in less than six months by the Ford Motor Company—an unbelievable number that put vehicles on the road nationwide.

Original prices for the Model A ranged from $385 to $1,400 for the high-end Town Car. This particular vehicle had an MSRP of $525. The engine featured an inline 4 cylinders with a displacement of 201 CID. This engine produced a massive 40 horsepower at 2,200 rpm, nearly an eighth of the average horsepower of cars today. The transmission was a conventional 3-speed sliding-gear manual unsynchronized unit with a single-speed reverse. Drum brakes were used to stop this 2,216-lb car. A stainless-steel radiator, front and rear bumpers, windshield wipers, spartan horn, combination tail and stop light, and headlamp housings were standard features.

The Model A was the first Ford auto to use a standard set of driver controls with a conventional clutch, brake pedal, gear shift, and accelerator. Rearview mirrors were optional.

The Model A was sold in a number of body styles, including the coupe, business coupe, roadster coupe, sport coupe, convertible cabriolet, convertible sedan, phaeton, tudor sedan, and town car. This particular Model A features a standard coupe body style with a rumble seat at the rear, a $50 option from the factory.

Kimes, Beverly (1996). Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. Krause Publications. ISBN 0-87341-428-4.