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"It should start up" he said as he slid behind the wheel.

It was a quite a sight. A 1928 Ford Model A; so shiny!

"Not a 1902 Model A," the white-haired owner was quick to point out. "That came first. Then the Model T. Then they started making the Model A again."

Blah, blah, blah! Cool old car; so shiny!

A grumpy Gus and his gussied-up gurney

Usually these sort of vintage autos start their second lives as rust buckets rescued from farmers' barns near places with names like Elrose and Fisk and Canmore. It's neither easy nor cheap to get from their to here; a labour of love for sure.

I asked the gentleman what it was like to drive.

"Terrible. It's 85-years-old!"

How the suspension? I inquired.

There isn't any! he declared flatly.

In truth I wasn't exactly feeling the love.

But it was clearly there to be seen in the careful restoration job: the creme-coloured rag-top and the shiny paint job.

[caption id="attachment_9720" align="alignnone" width="497"] When I was a kid I had a pedal-car with more controls than this![/caption]

When he turned the key in the ignition (they had keys in those days!) the motor chugged to life and sounded like... I don't know. Like a tractor? Not like a car or a truck -- not like anything I could put my finger on. And it didn't sound like anything for long. He turned the engine off and declared:

"It's starving for fuel. Why is that? I just put in a new filter!"

Then he opened up the right side wing of the engine compartment, revealing the Model A's tiny, simple looking, little engine. I could  see the plastic fuel filter he'd installed; along with the modern tubing and electrical wiring.

[caption id="attachment_9721" align="alignnone" width="497"] There's the problem guy. Someone obviously stole your engine![/caption]

This Model A's gas tank is between the engine and the driver and the gasoline is fed into the engine by nothing more than gravity -- very simple. A model A didn't come with complex things like fuel filters but that was then, this is now.

Today's gasoline is different enough from the 1928 variety that a filter is a good idea. For instance, I'm told, about ten percent of modern gasoline is ethanol (alcohol) by volume; the addition of ethanol -- to encourage North American fuel self-sufficiency -- makes gas more corrosive and modern engines are designed accordingly.

"It's running out of gas and I don't know why," the Model A's owner declared to no one in particular -- certainly not to me. He had forgotten all about me by now.

I was already riding away as he got back into the cab. I could hear the Ford's motor roar to life, and I was imagining how the streets of Vancouver would have sounded back in 1928 -- louder to be sure. Click the images to enlarge them.