T G Smith's day job at the Kentucky-Tennessee Power Company was instrumental in his realizing the various components of necessity:
city governments, businesses, and federal alphabet agencies created as part of the New Deal needed to power jack hammers, mining drills, and water pumps
and resources:
Ford Model As were cheap machines with proven reputations, in driveways and scrapyards in droves.
Smith designed a clever system to retrofit a used Model A.
He patented a cylinder head for the car’s 40-horse four-cylinder:
Cylinders one and four burned gasoline, powering the engine as usual;
two and three pumped air into a reservoir tank mounted on the car
Smith’s conversions didn’t stop with a head swap.
The rear two-thirds of a Model A were lopped off, sectioning the car at the cowl.
Little of the vehicle’s front went to waste: The leaf springs that originally ran parallel to front and rear axles were removed, rotated 90 degrees, and remounted to support the two wheels of the now single-axle compressor housing.
The original hood, radiator, grille, dash, and gauges remained. The Ford’s original frame rails extended forward from the radiator and remained to form a yoke for easy towing.
The genius and the beauty of this, is that it's easily pulled, towed, and serviced by either you or your local Ford mechanic.
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