Prohibition on Ben Nevis

A hundred years ago Henry Alexander took his Model T Ford up Ben Nevis. It wouldn’t be allowed now. No, really, it isn’t being allowed. The greenery-yalleries have forbidden it. The John Muir Conservation Trust, which is apparently responsible for the Ben Nevis summit, will only permit a replica carried up by volunteers and then reassembled in commemoration.
Edinburgh Ford dealer Alexander wanted to show how rugged a Model T was, but knew he probably couldn’t drive it all the way. He was right; I’ve climbed there. The track is narrow and rocky. Anything off-track is steep. You might manage a mountain bike.

Henry’s team had to manhandle and dismantle to manage up to the summit, 4,406ft when I was at school. A Model T was only 1200lb (544kg), ten hundredweight in old money so manageable for a robust team of helpers, who took five days over boulders, through snow-drifts and over dangerous loose sand paths. A lot of press, including a chap from The Autocar, assembled at the top to greet the pioneers, who had built little bridges over streams and waterfalls. It took them less than three hours to come down gradients steeper than 1 in 3.

The Ben Nevis Challenge Tour, from 16 - 21 May, is organised by the Model T Register celebrating the 100th anniversary of Alexander’s achievement. Over 60 Model Ts will give daily runs, providing opportunities to see privately-owned examples of Ford's first Universal Car on the picturesque roads around Fort William. There will be a display of Ford vehicles and memorabilia at the Nevis Centre. Other vehicles from the Ford Heritage Collection will include a replica of Henry Ford's first vehicle, the Quadricycle, and a 1910 Model T.

Henry Ford sent eight American Model T’s to Olympia, London, on 13 November 1908. He was keen on exports and they went on to Paris afterwards. Fords had been imported since 1903, the Model Ts coming in through The Central Motor Car Company Ltd, of 117 Long Acre, London WC. Among radical features were cylinders cast in one block and an integral engine, clutch and gearbox. The epicyclic gears drew inspiration from the works of Frederick Lanchester along principles that would form the basis of modern automatic transmissions. There were three pedals; the middle one engaged reverse, the left engaged low when pressed, high when released, and the right operated the transmission brake. A steering column throttle controlled engine speed. Transverse road springs meant only two were needed instead of four; a useful economy. Crosswise springing also offered less resistance to side-roll and twisting on corners. Ford was a passionate advocate of vanadium steel, which he believed made cars stronger and lighter to it was used for the Model T’s frail looking but sturdy drop forged front axle, spindly crankshaft, and parts of the transmission.


Ford Motor Company (England) Ltd began making Model Ts at Trafford Park, Manchester in 1911. The first British Ford was assembled from imported parts on 23 October, Ford’s Irish factory supplying chassis items until Joseph Sankey, of Hadley Shropshire, took over but it was the 1920s before Model Ts were wholly home grown. A Detroit-style moving production line came in September 1914. Assembly had been a stationary affair with axles and chassis laid out on the floor, now building a Model T took 12 hours. Moving assembly tracks had been used elsewhere, but Ford waited until components could be made accurately enough to be interchangeable, cutting build time to an hour and a half. The following year the flywheel magneto operated an electric lighting set, not altogether satisfactorily, since being dependent on engine speed, the lights grew dim when driving slowly. The Model T’s success was so overwhelming all other Fords were discontinued.

INTRODUCTION 27 September 1908, produced until 26 May 1927.
BODY Various styles; 2 or 4-seats; weight 1200lb (544kg).
ENGINE 4-cylinders, in-line; front; 3.75in (95.25mm) x 4in (101.6mm), 2896cc (176.7 cu in); compr 4.5:1; 20bhp (14.91kW) @ 1800rpm; 6.9bhp (5.1kW)/l.
ENGINE STRUCTURE L-head side valve; gear-driven camshaft; non-adjustable tappets; detachable cast iron cylinder head and block; Holley or Kingston single jet updraught carburettor, mixture adjustable by driver; low-tension flywheel magneto, distributor and separate trembler coil for each cylinder, standby battery for starting; splash lubrication; gravity fuel feed; 3-bearing crankshaft; cooling by multi-tube radiator (brass shell in UK until 1916 thereafter black), thermosyphon, and fan.
TRANSMISSION rear wheel drive; epicyclic 2-speed and reverse gearbox, steel disc clutches for low speed and reverse by contracting bands on epicycle drums; multi-disc clutch for direct drive top; propeller shaft enclosed in torque tube; final drive passenger cars and light vans straight-tooth bevel gears; ratio 3.64:1 high 10:1 low.
CHASSIS straight steel channel-section chassis; transverse leaf springs front and rear with radius rods; mechanical brakes foot – contracting band on direct-drive clutch, hand – expanding shoes in rear wheel drums; steering by epicyclic reduction gear in steering wheel boss, drop arm on end of steering column, transverse drag link, 1.25 turns lock to lock; 10gal (45.46l) fuel tank; 30 x 3in front, 30 x 3.5in rear, variations on balloon and straight-sided tyres; hickory-spoked artillery wheels, non-detachable, fixed rims; detachable rims after 1919; wire-spoked wheels 1925.
DIMENSIONS wheelbase 100in (254cm); track 56in (142.2cm) later 60in (152.4cm); length 134in (340.4cm); width 66in (167.6cm); ground clearance 10.5in (76.2cm).
EQUIPMENT from 1909-1915 no electrical system; 1915-1919 8v headlamps and horn from flywheel magneto; 1919-1927 dynamo and battery for 6v starting and lighting.
PERFORMANCE maximum speed 45mph (72.2kph) approx, claim by Ford, 15mph (24kph) in low; 27.2kg/bhp (36.5kg/kW); fuel consumption 28mpg (10.1l/100km).
PRICE Various models, roadster, tourer, 2-door, 4-door saloons, and town car, chassis 1919 £170, 1921 £250, 1924 2-seater £110.

Data from The Ford Centenary File: Dove Publishing, 2011Seventeen years after taking the Model T up Ben Nevis, Henry Alexander made the ascent with a new Model A. I don’t expect that would be allowed now either. The John Muir Conservation Trust is sure smelly old petrol cars with nasty exhaust emissions will ever catch on.

Trafford Park, Manchester

A hundred years ago this month (March) Henry Ford’s man in Britain wanted to lease a Manchester tramcar factory. Henry was not convinced. He may have thought history bunk but knew his geography and it didn’t make sense to assemble Model Ts 40 miles inland. Their components from Detroit were cheapest by ship. Henry knew Manchester wasn’t on-Sea.

Bristol-born Percival Lea Dewhurst Perry had taken over the American Motor Car Agency of Long Acre, London in 1905 and knew a good thing when he saw one. He had unpacked the first Model Bs from wooden crates at Vauxhall Bridge Wharf on the Thames. Perry’s ocean-going ships would bring vanadium steel frames and engines from America. They would bypass Liverpool by the Manchester Ship Canal and unload straight into the old tram factory, to make brand new Model Ts.

Perry’s agency partner of 1905, Aubrey Blakiston had been worried too. They had been selling only one car a month, so Blakiston resigned in 1907, leaving Perry to sell the Model N (above); a bargain at £120. Perry poshed them up with landaulette bodywork and sold 50 from the new Perry, Thornton and Schreiber. It had seven employees and moved to Westminster Bridge Road for the launch of Model T in October 1908. Eight were sent over for the Olympia Motor Show.

Now Perry needed help with the tram factory. He went to Detroit and asked Henry Ford for support. It didn’t amount to much at first. Yet Henry knew exports were essential for his vision of cars by the thousand. Almost as soon as he had started making them he was sending them across the Detroit River where Ford Canada held the concession for the Dominion, in effect the great Edwardian British Empire. Henry convinced Ford Canada’s proprietor, Gordon McGregor, to waive its rights to the United Kingdom. McGregor agreed: “The rest of the Empire is enough for me,” and Perry returned, reassured.

Ford company secretary James Couzens had an idea. If Perry wanted to build cars in Britain he needed a bigger organisation. So, in March 1911 Ford Motor Company (England) Ltd began selling Fords from 55-59 Shaftesbury Avenue. Then, as now, Ford had designed a car for the world.

1912 Model T Town Car
Henry had stipulated his European factories should be next the sea, to be supplied by the shipload. His line across the Atlantic made landfall in Ireland, from where his father had emigrated in 1847. The tramcar factory won the race, although by the 1920s Ford was building tractors on the quayside at Cork.

Manchester was fourth largest port in Britain. Only London, Liverpool and Hull did more trade. Canny Mancunians finished their Ship Canal in 1894 because it was costing almost as much to bring goods and raw materials from Liverpool, as it had to ship them across the Atlantic. Canal managers built factories at Manchester docks. Ford’s had belonged to the British Electric Car Company (BECC), which made tramcars for everywhere from Ayr to Egypt, until a rival bought the company and closed it down. The buildings on the corner of Westinghouse Road and First Avenue were empty until Percival Perry came to set up Henry Ford’s first factory outside America.

Its neighbour on the canal side was a crane manufacturer, Frederick Henry Royce. Born, like Henry Ford, in 1863 he too went into cars.

Trafford Park had its own railway siding and by 1914 Ford sent Model T cars, vans, lorries, ambulances and buses in covered wagons to 1000 dealers. Perry thought Manchester, “The best geographical and economic centre for our business,” and workers welcomed Ford. Its 10d to 1s 3d (4p to 6.25p) an hour were the best rates in the industrial north. Prosperous pre-First World War Britain became Ford’s second biggest market after the US. Ford was more stable and consistent than the indigenous motor industry and by the time the 250,000th was shown at the Empire Exhibition, Wembley it was not just assembled in Britain. King George V and Queen Mary visited the stand that advertised British Cars made of British Parts by British Labour.

Ford became integrated so completely into industrial and manufacturing life that it was often regarded, sometimes even in Detroit, as British.

The Ford in Britain Centenary File, now on sale, £27.50. Link to Amazon

King George V

Researching pictures for Dove Publishing’s Ford Centenary File turned up this 1965 C-registered Mark I Cortina alongside King George V, the 4-6-0 express locomotive by Charles Benjamin Collett, built in July 1927 for the Great Western Railway. First of the “King” class, No. 6000 was immediately shipped from Cardiff docks to the United States for the centenary celebrations of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, for which it earned a plaque and bell. Railway engines often had nicknames. “The Diver,” NBR224 built at Cowlairs and recovered from the Tay after the bridge disaster of 1879, remained on the rails until 1919. No. 6000’s soubriquet was, “The Bell” and according to Wikipedia was withdrawn by Western Region British Railways in December 1962, with 1,910,424 miles on the clock. So what about the publicity picture? Nobody at Ford seemed to know much, yet it looks as though it cannot have been contemporary because the Cortina’s C suffix was issued in 1965, four years after the locomotive was taken out of service. No. 6000 doesn’t look as if it has steam up although there is coal in the tender and the driver seems authentic. Was it languishing temporarily at the Swindon stock shed assigned to the National Collection in 1964? It was towed to London Stratford works, a temporary base for the Collection on 31 December 1966. Was it back in Swindon before being installed at the Swindon Steam Railway Museum in March 1968? It did sterling work hauling steam trains in the age of the diesel. In 1971 it hauled a Return to Steam Special from Birmingham Moor Street to Olympia. It then went from London to the Bulmer collection at Hereford, 525 miles, on 12 tons of coal and 125,000 gallons of water. It steamed until 1987 when its boiler certificate expired and went on exhibition at Swindon. No. 6000 was then swopped for British Railways Standard 9F 92220 “Evening Star”. All 89 tons of King George V (without tender, 137.5 tons in all) is now in the National Railway Museum, York. It has a 16.35in x 28in 4 cylinder engine. But no Cortina

Cortinas feature in The Ford Centenary File, published March 2011

Ford Anglo Saxon

A Ford that never saw production, the Saxon, based on the Cortina was built in 1962. Encouraged, perhaps, by the 2+2 Consul Capri of 1961, Sir Patrick Hennessy, Ford Chairman from 1956 thought it would make commercial sense. Engineer George Baggs recalled Sir Patrick’s personal interest: “We took the Saxon prototype up to his house one Sunday afternoon. The butler served tea.” It was pure Cortina up to the waistline; with a different boot lid and coupe roof it could have been produced for very little more than the regular saloon. It would have been lighter and with the GT engine also faster. Sir Patrick’s term of office was drawing to an end, however. He combined the posts of chairman and chief executive until 1963, retiring aged 70 on 3 May 1968. Plans were already under way for the much sportier, though fragile, Lotus Cortina. The ‘Anglo’ Saxon was taken to Detroit for evaluation and never seen again. Replicas have been made on cut-down Cortina shells but I never found out what happened to the original. Was it broken up or does it survive in a quiet corner of the Ford museum?

ABOVE: 1961 Capri, inspiration for the Saxon, used in research material for The Ford Centenary File, to be published March 2011

Motherwell Tramcar

Motherwell may not have had a lot in common with Buenos Aires except that both ran Manchester-made trams. Between 1902 and 1904 the British Electric Car Company Ltd made tramcars at Trafford Park. The Manchester Ship Canal enabled it to export from its little factory, well-equipped with overhead cranes, to Egypt, New Zealand and South America. Its 4-wheeled single-truck double-deck open toppers must have been good, selling to 30 towns in Britain so successfully that the firm was bought out by the rival United Electric Car Company of Preston, and promptly wound up.

The factory on the corner of Westinghouse Road and First Avenue was later leased by the fledgling Ford Motor Company (England) Ltd, to build the first Fords made outside America. Henry Ford always liked his factories to be close by docks. Trafford Park had access to America, bringing in component parts by way of the Ship Canal, and it was right by a railhead from which it could send completed cars.

Ford’s managing director, Percival Lea Dewhurst Perry, spent £2000 leasing the 5.5acre (2.2hectare) site, beside that of crane manufacturer Frederick Henry Royce. Born, like Henry Ford in 1863, Royce too went into cars and aero engines. Each Trafford Park factory had its own railway siding and by 1914 Ford was sending vehicles in covered wagons to 1000 dealers. Perry thought Manchester, “The very best geographical and economic centre for our business.” The workforce welcomed Ford; it paid the best rates, 10d to 1s 3d (4p to 6.25p) an hour although their terms of employment could shift them from trade to trade. Before the First World War Britain was Ford’s second biggest market after the US, and the company turned out, in the long run, more stable and consistent than the indigenous motor industry.

Research for Dove Publishing’s next book, which celebrates a hundred years of making Fords in Britain, has turned up some engaging detail, not all of which can be accommodated in a manuscript of even 130,000 words. I never heard the rattle of the “BE Standard Cars” that used to ply on Jerviston Road, past No 98 where I was born. By that time the Hamilton Motherwell and Wishaw Tramways Company had retired to its great Traction House in the sky, and Ford had its own Thames-side wharf at Dagenham.
The Ford in Britan Centenary File will be published in March 2011