One of the Most Important & Rare Ford Automobiles In Existence
40hp, 405 cu. in. inline six-cylinder engine cast in singles, two-speed planetary transmission, live axle suspension with leaf springs and rear-wheel mechanical drum brakes. Wheelbase: 114"
Through all the fits and starts that culminated in the Ford Motor Company’s reshaping the history of the automobile and the development of industrial America, the Model K is a milestone. Henry Ford’s driven genius compelled him through a series of abortive ventures, down seeming dead end deviations, and through assorted alliances both benign and expedient. A look through the first decade of Ford’s experiments with the automobile shows little evidence of direction, but rather a wide ranging empirical education, gathering experience with various technologies, materials, markets and personnel until he arrived, almost as if he walked through an automotive Looking Glass, at the Model T.
The Model K was the antithesis of the Model T. It was a large automobile built on a 114 inch wheelbase. Its 405 cubic inch six-cylinder engine had abundant power and even greater torque to propel large and luxurious bodywork carrying a full load of passengers and their impedimenta. At $2,500 it was expensive although, significantly, it was barely half the price of automobiles of comparable size and power from marques like Packard, Peerless and Pierce.
What made the Ford Model K so special? First of all it was the final vehicle produced during Henry Ford’s business association with Alexander Malcolmson, the Detroit coal magnate who financed Ford’s earliest car companies. Malcolmson was central to Ford’s growth, backing the self-taught farm boy since 1902 through several companies, both informal and corporate. The buyout of Malcolmson by Ford – for $175,000, which represented a good profit on Malcolmson’s cash investment but paled in hindsight with the hundreds of millions his interest would have been worth in later years – relieved Ford of outside management influence and freed him to realize his dream of building a reliable, affordable, simple automobile.
The Model K also was Ford’s final foray into the luxury car field – at least until he bought Henry Leland’s Lincoln 17 years later – completing another semester in his automotive education. In the first decade of the twentieth century the automobile was a mark of stature, success and social standing. It was adopted by the wealthy, who could afford to indulge their craving for the latest fad and who could also support the staff needed to give the complicated and often idiosyncratic early automobiles the constant attention they needed.
Fully half the automobiles sold at that time cost as much as or more than the Ford Model K. Malcolmson’s insistence upon building the luxury Model K reflected not only his informed perception of the automobiles in demand by his circle of friends and associates but also made eminent good business sense. These were the cars that were being sold by dozens of successful manufacturers both in the U.S. and in Europe. They generated sales and profits. Any sensible businessman could see that the luxury market was the path to success, even if it was crowded with competitors.
Consequently, Henry Ford and the team slowly growing around him (like James Couzens and C.H Wills) built the Model K. It was an impressive automobile that reflected much that Ford and his team had learned. Built on a 114 inch wheelbase (later to grow to 120 inches), its power came from a 4 1/4 inch bore, 4 1/2 inch stroke inline six-cylinder engine, an innovative move at a time when even luxury automobile manufacturers relied upon large
four-cylinder engines. The individual cylinders were cast separately, including the combustion chamber, valve chambers, ports and water jackets, and bolted to a cast iron cylinder block with seven main bearings carrying a forged crankshaft. Dual battery/magneto ignition provided both better performance and reliability. Like all the Fords of the time the Model K employed a simple but reliable two-speed planetary transmission driven through a multi-plate clutch. Shaft drive took power from the transmission to the rear axle.
The Model K’s frame was formed from steel. Suspension employed semi-elliptical leaf springs at the front and full-elliptical at the rear. Typically for the time, the hand-operated service brake operated on internally-expanding shoes in rear drums while a foot pedal controlled a driveshaft-mounted emergency brake.
In fact the Ford Model K was not just state-of-the-art, it was in many respects one of the best luxury automobiles available in 1906. It is hard not to read the tea leaves in Henry Ford’s pricing of the Model K. At $2,500 (later increased to $2,800) it was half the price of Pierce’s 1906 Great Arrow 40hp Touring, a four-cylinder design. It also was, by all accounts, never a profit-maker for Ford. Alexander Malcomson insisted upon building a luxury Ford to capture a piece of the luxury market. Henry built it, in the process building one of the best luxury cars on the market, and then got right back at Malcolmson by pricing it to be both: a) within the reach of a broader middle market; and b) so it never made money.
A few months after the Model K’s launch Malcolmson was out, but the Model K persisted in Ford’s catalog even as the simpler and much less expensive Model N, Model R and Model S began to rack up sales in the thousands and led, both in design philosophy and alphabetical sequence, toward the Model T. Henry Ford may have been working his way toward light, simple, inexpensive, mass-produced automobiles, but along the way he devoted considerable effort to promoting the big six-cylinder Model K.
Following the success achieved with the 999, Arrow and Model B-based “Baby Limited” race cars, Ford employed the basic Model K as a record breaker. It was unsuccessful at Ormond Beach and Atlantic City in 1905 and 1906 but a year later at Detroit, Bert Lorimer and Frank Kulick piloted a “stock” Ford Model K to victory in a 24 hour event, setting a 24 hour distance record of 1,135 miles by a comfortable margin of 309 miles over the previous record.
This event also added another important, although peripheral, accomplishment to the Model K’s history. Ford’s advertisement publicizing its victory and 24 hour record carried a tagline reading, “Watch the Fords go by.” That phrase’s recurring appearance in Ford advertising is an ongoing tribute to and reminder of the quality and performance of the Ford Model K.
Ford offered the Model K in two body styles, a five place tulip-bodied tourer with 50mph top speed and a lightweight streamlined roadster (“a racing sport body designed to exclude eddy currents and air friction”) which Ford guaranteed would achieve 60mph, at the time the benchmark for a high performance automobile.
The 1906 Ford Model K offered by RM Auctions at Vintage Motor Cars in Arizona is one of those high performance roadsters from 1906. It is an outstanding and wonderful original example with a long, known history. Bought back in the dim recesses of car collecting history by the Temrowski Collection in Detroit, it was snatched from under the nose of one Henry Ford, who was then assembling cars important to Ford Motor Company’s history.
Apparently there was good-natured competition between Ford and Temrowski and the collection promised to gift it to Henry Ford on his 85th birthday, a promise sadly obviated by Ford’s death in 1947 at the age of 83. It remained in Temrowski’s collection until well after his death when it was acquired by its most recent owner where it remained a cherished possession and the highlight within an important collection of Brass Era motor cars. It has always been carefully maintained, never requiring or even warranting spoiling its originality with a restoration. Further to this, it may well be one of the most original of all Model K Fords in existence. To restore this singular piece of history would be a crime in itself as it needs nothing and with continued proper care and fastidious ownership, it will continue to only appreciate in its importance as well as value.
Its bodywork is an intriguing arrangement dominated by a tall wood-framed folding windshield and flat blade fenders. However, looking beyond the accoutrements the essential simplicity of the design, a low, flat hood level with the cowl, steeply raked steering post and separate bucket seats, speaks eloquently of Ford’s claims for its streamlined design. Though not pictured here, the Ford is also complete with a set of removable rear seats and a convertible top, both of which will accompany the car in its sale and will be displayed at the auction.
Details abound, including many that presage elements Ford would incorporate in the Model T. Today fitted out for touring with the windshield, two seats, a wicker basket and tool box on the rear deck, a full complement of head, side and tail lights, single spare and rim mounted on the right, driver’s side, running board behind a magnificent three-tube exhaust whistle, it’s not hard to imagine this lightweight, high speed, streamlined Model K stripped to the minimum and tearing around the Detroit 24 hour race course piloted by Kulick and Lorimer in 1907.
Students of Ford history also will note the distinctive large Ford script cut from sheet brass and attached to the core of the brass-shell radiator. It is similar in style and layout to, but very different in detail from, the Ford script which would soon become Ford’s trademark.
By all accounts this is the earliest surviving Model K roadster, the prototype upon which later Model K roadsters were based; it is certainly the most complete, with dull, aged paint and ancient seat coverings. It retains its original dual ignition system with coil and battery ignition for starting and magneto for running. The steering box is, as in the earliest Model T’s, a planetary box in the steering wheel hub. When acquired by Temrowski the Model K’s two-speed planetary driveline gearbox had been replaced by a conventional three-speed sliding gear transmission. The planetary transmission was replicated years ago and now properly resides in correctly reproduced aluminum framework.
Ford Model K roadster number 107 is more than fully operational as it is a ready to drive and enjoy Brass Era motor car that is unlike any other. It is believed there are approximately eight Model Ks in existence today, with chassis number 107 remaining
the template against all others are judged.
It is one of the most important automobiles in Ford’s history, a judgment made by no less an authority than Henry Ford over a half century ago when he tried to buy it for his own collection, and has had two caring owners for approximately 75 years of its 99 year life.
Opportunities to acquire exceptional cars like this rarely occur, and then they usually are formal cars which their wealthy owners could not sell when they were outdated. A lightweight, sporting, high horsepower, original automobile of this character almost never survives, much less a milestone in the history of a manufacturer of the caliber of the Ford Motor Company.
RM Auctions is delighted to present what is undoubtedly one of the most important early Fords in existence at the Arizona Biltmore auction. The purchase of such a significant motor car represents the ultimate opportunity to own a piece of moving history that is singular and unquestionably important in every respect.
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