HISTORICAL FACTS OF INTEREST

Although this Ford car is not in Herman Nel's collection, it is interesting to note that the first first Ford motor car ever to be sold outside of America was sold to a South African, Mr Arthur Youldon of Johannesburg.

Mr Youldon, was an importer,and in September of 1903 happened to be in New York where he saw Henry Ford demonstrate his new car.

Arthur Youldon immediately placed an order with Henry Ford for one of these Ford motor cars and was then informed that his car would be the first Ford motor car ever to be sold outside America.
Remember that the Ford Motor Company was formed on 16 June 1903, three months earlier. It only arrived in Johannesburg in February 1904. This car is currently in Anton Rupert's car museum in the Cape.

In 1902 a 39-year-old French inventor named Leon Levavasseur took out a patent for the first V-8 engine which he called the Antoinette after the daughter of his financial backer. This V-8 engine was used to power aeroplanes, racing boats and some early passenger cars, which used relatively light V8 engines, between 25 - 50 horsepower.

He was to see his V-8 engine become most popular engine in automotive history. Unfortunately he died in 1922 before Henry Ford and the Chrysler Motor Company perfected his invention. The biggest improvement on his invention was Henry Ford's one-piece version with a down draft carburetor. This remained unchanged for nearly 20 years until Chrysler developed the hemispherical "Hemi" V8. At this stage experiments on fuel injection motors began.

Henry Ford shocked the world by doing the impossible. He mass-produced the V-8 engine known as the Flathead. Here he is shown with his first production engine which is displayed in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn Michigan. A brass tag on the first engine reads: "This is V-8 No. 1 motor. Hold for Mr. H. Ford." The Flathead was the first independently designed and built V8 engine produced by the Ford Motor Company for mass production in 1932 and ranks as one of the company's most important developments. Before the 1932 introduction of this engine, almost all production cars used straight-4 and straight-6 engines. Engines like V8s and V16s were produced, but were not meant for mass consumption. In the USA the Flathead was replaced by the Ford Y-block engine in 1954. The original Flathead engine displaced 221 cu in (3.6 L). The engine block was cast as a single piece for durability and a single-barrel carburetor fed the engine during 1932 and 1933

Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929): 30th President of the United States of America.
Pictured here with his 1923 Lincoln town car

The aluminum-bodied sedan was bought for him when he was Vice President in May 1923. Although he became president the August
following Warren Harding's death, it's uncertain whether the car was used as his presidential motorcar.

This car, was shown at the Vermont History Expo in 2007.
In todays world it would be frowned upon as a non eco-friendly vehicle, as it only gets about eight miles to the gallon.

His 1920 Fourth of July speech delivered before he was nominated to run for Vice President, was one of the very first sound movies ever made.