Ford Model A

A 1931 Ford Model A in excellent condition is not found every day. One still owned by the person who bought it new is indeed rare, and that’s the case with Marshall Sprague.

Sprague, 81, a Colorado Springs author and historian, purchased a deluxe Cabriolet Model A Ford in New York City on April 14, 1931. It was a gift from his mother in honor of his graduation from Princeton.

“I walked to the Theodore Luks Ford agency on West 57th Street and paid the salesman $679 cash. The salesman almost fainted when he saw all that cash,” Sprague said. “It was deep in the Depression. He called for an armed guard to take the money to the cashier.”
That started a long and happy association between man and machine.

“That gal back there,” Sprague said, gesturing toward his wife Edna Jane, or “E Jay” as she prefers to be called. “I courted her in the rumble seat,” he said as he patted the leather seat.
Sprague has used the car to teach his three children to drive on the plains of Colorado and has driven it all over North America.

“We named her Calliope, but the children had trouble saying that,” Sprague said. “So they called her Cloppy, which is what she sounds like at idle with the spark turned up.”
Cloppy still has all of its original body parts, the four cylinders, Waltham speedometer, distributor and Zenith carburetor.

The car has been driven more than 200,000 miles.
Painted several times, the color is the original taupe.
Sprague said it was the first car with four-wheel mechanical brakes.

The only major repair to Cloppy was a valve job in 1949. The convertible top also was replaced in 1949.
Sprague moved to Colorado Springs in 1941 and the car was stored in a barn in Maine until 1948, when his mother drove it to him.

Some of the places Sprague has taken Cloppy are Mexico City; across the Mohave Desert to Barstow, Calif., in 130-degree heat; North Bay, Ontario, to see the Dionne quintuplets; and several trips up Pikes Peak.

“She has never failed us on the road,” Sprague said.
The last year the Model A was built was 1931, and Sprague says it was built better than expected.
“They had so many spare parts left over that they used them to make the Model B,” Sprague said.
Sprague still has the original hand crank in case the electric starter fails.

He is proud of the car’s performance, and while 24.03 horsepower may seem minimal, it was quite sufficient in its day.
“I could beat any damn car on the road,” Sprague said. “Even the fancy Oldmobiles and Buicks.
“I could make it the 10 blocks from light to light on Park Avenue in one minute.”

Although he hasn’t needed many, Sprague said replacement parts are available through “some outfit in Texas,” and the tires can be replaced by Sears.
Sprague came to Colorado Springs as a journalist, but soon discovered the area’s history had been neglected.

He since has written several books dealing with the history of the West, including “Money Mountain, The Story of Cripple Creek Gold,” “The Great Gates, The Story of the Rocky Mountain Passes,” “The Mountain States,” “So Vast So Beautiful A Land, Louisiana and the Purchase” and “Newport in the Rockies, The Life and Good Times of Colorado Springs”.

Befitting an historian, Sprague lives in the oldest house on Wood Avenue.
The house was built in 1896 and Sprague and his family have lived there since 1942.
The garage that houses Cloppy was built as a stable. In fact, Sprague pointed out, most of the garages in the neighborhood originally were stables.

It seems a fitting setting for a motor car that carries a collector’s license plate and is labeled “Horseless Carriage.”