1911 Ford
1911 Ford - Over 10,000 Classic, Collector and Current Cars and Trucks at RemarkableCars.com
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Posts: 13,371
Registered: April 2008
Location: Woodstock, GA
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1911 Ford Model T Semi-Truck
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Date Posted
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1
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298
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August 27, 2008
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Photo Gallery
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Description:
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1911 Ford Model T Semi-Truck
The world's first "semi", built by Fruehauf, using a 1911 Ford Model T and a Smith Form-A-Truck unit.
This historic truck and trailer combination came to be because a Detroit lumber dealer, Frederic M. Sibley, Sr., wanted a better way to transport his boat to a northern Michigan resort area. In the summer of 1914 Sibley took his problem to the blacksmith shop of August Fruehauf with a request for Fruehauf to design a contraption capable of carrying his boat to hook onto Sibley's Model T. With his associate, Otto Neumann, Fruehaf built a sturdy two-wheeler that hooked to the rear of the Ford frame with a pole acting both as tounge and brake. They called it a semi-trailer. It worked so well that Sibley decided such a vehicle, with the addition of a platform, could be used to deliver lumber. Fruehauf modified the trailer for him. It proved so successful that other customers ordered similar trailers, and Fruehauf was launched into the trailer business.
In 1913, the year before Sibley wanted his trailer, Smith Form-A-Truck of Chicago introduced the first truck conversion unit for a Model T Ford chassis. The conversion kit cost $350 and within two years, thousands were sold and numerous competitors offered similar units, including Ton-a-Ford, Overton, Metz, Maxfer, and Redden.
Photo By: Douglas Wilkinson
Date: June, 2005
Location: The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI
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1911 Ford Model T Semi-Truck
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1911 Ford
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