Forget the Model T; the Cadillac is the car for me.
With plush leather seats, brass headlights and an engine that purrs, the 1911 Cadillac won my heart from the beginning.
Last week a group of reporters got the rare privilege of driving antique cars at the Reynolds-Alberta Museum as part of a promotional event for the museum’s new exhibit: The Model T How Tin Lizzie Changed the World.
Staff selected eight vehicles from their collection of 350 vintage automobiles and trucks.
Instead of admiring the cars from behind a roped area, as visitors must often do, we had the opportunity to drive vehicles of the very type our parents and grandparents once drove.
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Everyone jumped at the chance to drive the Model T, the famous vehicle that gave locomotion to the masses.
Before getting behind the wheel we were led through a 15-minute course on how to use the Model T’s complicated set of floor pedals. Using three small sponges glued to rubber floor mats, a toilet plunger doubling as a gearshift and a clock for a steering wheel, our lessons began.
The first thing to know about driving a Model T is to forget about anything you’ve ever learned about driving a standard shift vehicle. The floor pedals jammed together have no relation to the pedals on a modern vehicle.
In the end I gave up and figured I would wing it when I got behind the wheel. With the help of staff and volunteers, we zipped around a track outside the museum.
Even on a graded gravel track, the Model T was not a smooth ride. I could sympathize with early adopters who bounced over rough roads to their country homes.
The 1911 Cadillac 30 Demi-Tourabout was different. With its soft black leather seats, easy to use gearshift, automatic starter and powerful motor, the Cadillac was a luxury car even 100 years ago.
The 1935 Maple Leaf two-ton farm truck with its leather seats and wood-grain dash was fancier than any grain truck I’ve ever driven.
But what the truck made up for in luxury it lacked in necessity. The truck’s designers must not have thought rear view mirrors or signal lights were needed on farm trucks. Backing up the vehicle is a two-person job.
By late afternoon, when the storm clouds blew in and rain was only minutes away, it was nice to jump back into my modern vehicle with a roof, windows, heater and air conditioning and not worry how wet I would get or if the vehicle would make it home on muddy roads.
