Repurposed 1930 Cabriolet - found on eBay - May 2014

 

1930 Model A Ford Cabriolet Rural Mail Delivery Snow Mobile Flyer Bird

 

This very special Model A Ford convertible cabriolet was originally manufactured around June of 1930.  Leonard Quammen of Lindsay in north eastern Montana had it modified by a local blacksmith named Walt Freeman in 1940 or 1941 for use in delivering rural mail around Lindsay. Leonard farmed near Lindsay and had mail routes both north and south of Lindsay. He would deliver mail on one route on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and deliver mail on the other route on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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Goodyear 11.25 x 24 pneumatic tractor tires were used on 24" tractor tire rims. These tires were introduced in the mid 1930's and were Goodyear's first pneumatic farm tractor tires. They had a diamond with a hole in the center for the tread pattern. This distinctive tread design was not self-cleaning when running in mud so these tires were not as popular with some farmers as they might otherwise have been. Goodyear had thousands of various sizes of this type of tire in their warehouses in the late 1930's and found it hard to find homes for them. They eventually sold them for snow applications such as on this car or for use on agricultural equipment such as grain combines that were normally only used in dry weather conditions. Leonard tried skis on the the front once. They would work fine on snow, but when there were bare spots in the road, they did not work well.

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The four tires on this rig are now over 70 years old so they are showing their age. You can still see the name GOODYEAR painted white on all of them.   The rear axle and wheels are from a Model TT truck in order to get the higher numerical axle ratio to handle the larger diameter tires. The front wheels are made from 21" 1928 or 1929 Model A wheels. The outer row of spokes was long enough to reach the 24" tractor rims. The inner crossed spokes were completely removed and replaced with spokes about 3" longer. All welds on this conversion were done with a torch because electric arc welders were still a scarce item in rural Montana in the early 1940's.