Name: Ewald and Betty Ann Braun, Red Deer County
Make/Model: 1931 Ford Model A Victoria
How did you come to have this car?
“It was a little swap meet and they were advertising it and I knew how rare the Victoria’s were so as soon as I seen the one for sale I had to see it to see what it’s all about. And after seeing it, the body was in such nice shape I just couldn’t leave it there we had to go back and pick it up.”
What kind of shape was it in when you found it?
“It was in pieces … There was nothing there. There was just a shell, you know like the body was there and motor, the parts were there but it was all in pieces nothing finished.”
How is the Victoria different from other Model A’s?
The Victoria was made in the later years of the Model A. “It was Henry’s (Henry Ford) pride and joy they called it the Ladies Car, type of deal. It was just a special car to him. There’s quite a few improvements over the standard Tudor, which it would be comparable to.”
How long did it take to restore the car?
“It took me a year and a half. Parts were hard to come by. We had to do a lot of searching because they didn’t build very many of them and they had made some changes so that all the other parts wouldn’t fit this car. The seats were different and the window closers were different, you had to search original parts.”
What is it about the Victoria that interests you?
“We belong to the Ford Model A Club of America. The Victoria is just a rare car so anybody that can get a hold of a Victoria is very very lucky. There’s just not many of them around so when I had the chance you had to take it.”
Do you have any other classic cars?
“Yes we’ve got a 1930 roadster, Model A Roadster and also a 30 closed cab pickup. And we build them for driving. We were just down in Moosejaw at a convention we towed this one down there and we drove it around Moosejaw all weekend and to the surrounding communities, we have a lot of fun with the car, we have a lot of fun.”
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