It?s Day 12, and the Fiesta team is starting the Canadian leg of the World Tour.
Not long after crossing the border, the Fiesta had a surprise reunion with one of its forefathers: a 1911 Model T Open Runabout parked outside a restaurant in Windsor, Ontario, just across the border from Detroit.
We pulled the 2011 Fiesta up beside it for a family photograph: the two Ford world cars – made 100 years apart – parked side by side. The Fiesta is the first global car Ford has launched since the Model T.
Werner Doster, the Model T’s owner, is just finishing lunch, but he’s only too happy to talk about his car. “It’s 100 years old and it runs like a sewing machine,” he says. He bought it 30 years ago in Florida for $30,000. That’s pretty impressive appreciation, since the original paperwork - which Doster keeps in the car - says it’s original price was $360.
The TLC that Doster puts into maintenance is obvious in the car’s gleaming brasswork. “They stopped making the brass ones in 1916,” he says. After that, Model T’s came in only one colour – or as Henry Ford famously said, any colour you want as long as it’s black. So brass-trimmed models are especially rarely come on the market.
Doster is constantly on the lookout for original brass fittings, such as headlight fixtures. His secret for sourcing parts? “If you want to restore an old car, go to Ebay,” he says.
Doster’s Model T wins awards at shows, but he also regularly tools around in it. But given that the T’s top speed is hardly sprightly, the Fiesta is a better bet for the morning commute.
“It’s not made for today’s traffic,” Doster says of the Model T. People are often surprised that he drives the car, even taking it as far as 100 miles to shows. “People tell me I should tow it, but I bought it to drive, not to tow.”
Doster was pleased to hear about the Fiesta's World Tour adventures. As the two Fords part company, the Fiesta carries on through Brantford, Ontario – where Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone – heading toward Niagara, one of Canada’s most prominent wine regions.
