They did it: The Hagerty team that set out to build a a drivable Ford Model A in just 100 hours using nothing but parts found at the 2016 Hershey swap meet did, in fact, end up with a drivable Ford Model A before the clock ran down.
The fenderless result may not be the nicest Model A in the world, and it’s sure as heck not going to impress any Blue Oval purists (for one, the chassis seems to have come from a roadster, but it’s now wearing a Fordor body), but you could do a whole lot worse than this for under $10,000 total.
And the process looked like a lot of fun! We stopped by a few times during our time at the meet, and the transformation from a rolling chassis with a non-running engine into a honest-to-goodness operable vehicle was impressive. Maybe you caught some of the action on the build livestream; if not, here are recap videos from all four days of the build:
We can’t say we blame them. After all, just by achieving drivability, the team proved what they set out to prove: You can build a running vehicle on a Hershey swap meet-only parts diet. And if they had needed an engine, brakes or tires, those components could have easily been sourced from the show field -- along with just about everything necessary to restore the whole thing back to concours condition, should that have been their objective.
As easy as online parts-buying may be, there's something cool about strolling the swap meet grounds, inspecting the wares and finding a few unexpected odds and ends in the process. Not to mention the instant gratification of trading cash for parts on the spot.
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