As we mentioned with the last Monday Shopper, the point here is not to focus on the big dollar lots that make news everywhere else, but to suggest that if you show up for the early lots of any given major auction in America, there are still good deals to be had. Our feature car this time around is this sweet 1922 Ford Model T Pickup that traded hands at Auctions America’s sale in Fort Lauderdale this past March 14 through 16. 
There’s no history attached to this Huckster-style Model T, so it’s tough to figure out how it started out. What is evident is that it’s got a standard 20hp Model T four-cylinder, mated to a three-speed trans, which it wouldn’t have come with originally. The body? Who knows. This could’ve started life as anything and along the line somebody could’ve put a wood bed on it.
Whatever the history, it looks to be in pretty decent shape. The paint is pretty orange-peely, but if you’re interested in getting a Model T to drive and mess around with, you could do a whole lot worse for a whole lot more money.
A million of these things had been produced by the time this one rolled off the assembly line, so obviously, they’re not rare. But we just posted a Craigslist ad for a Pinto that was within $2,500 of the sale price of this sweet truck.
Whether you’re interested in building hot rod or just having something fun to haul bags of mulch from the Home Depot, at a sale price of $6,325, can you really go wrong buying a running, driving, decent-looking Model T? You can’t buy an early Honda CB750 for that kind of money now. There’s at least that much in raw materials here.
So what do you think? Buy it or pass? And if you did buy it, what would you do with it?
The difference being I wouldn’t buy a Honda at any price. I put a 289 in it and have fun.
If I didn’t have a new baby on the way and urgently need $6325 for other things, I’d be really tempted. I’d leave it as is, take it to car shows, and use it for running whatever sort of errands need a bit of cargo room but not a larger truck.
Looks like a regular T trans to me? You hold the left pedal to the floor, that is low. Releasing the hand break all the way and let off low gear engages into high. Good for 35mph. Middle peddle is reverse, and right peddle is the brake.
Well said Rat Patrol. My Dad had a 21 Center Door Sedan Model T for the first 45 years of my life. I drove it only a couple times, and it was the hardest vehicle I ever did drive. With neutral, achieved by holding that left pedal halfway up between low, all the way down, and high, left pedal all the way released, it was very hard for me as a conventional stick shift driver to understand. Dad always said a lot of Model T’s were accidentally driven through the back walls of barns as farmers learned to drive them. I just know that when I was done driving his, sweat was pouring off me. All of these words to say, that I think the 3 speed manual is a great conversion