Ford Flivver

gorby
Nice job. I've been looking for this kit for a while.

Curtis Caden
Thanks gorbygould. The kit was a gift from my high school chemistry teacher. Not sure where he got it. Seems like something someone would buy at the Henry Ford Museum gift shop. I built a couple of VWs for my teacher and he gave me all his models and paints that I think were his sons. Anyway I thought it would be a fun thing to build.

wilky
I only recently heard about this aircraft.
Good job on the kit.
Interesting story behind this aircraft

Curtis Caden
So is this story: The Ford Trimotor was Henry Ford's first successful commercial aircraft venture in 1925. Following the Ford Model T as an "everyman's" vehicle, the Ford Flivver was designed to be a mass-produced "everyman's" aircraft. The idea was first proposed to William Bushnell Stout, manager of Ford's acquired aircraft division in 1926. Both Stout and William Benson Mayo, head of Ford's Aircraft Division wanted nothing to do with the aircraft and it was built in a nearby museum building in the Ford Laboratories.
The single-seat aircraft was designed with Mr. Ford's instructions that it "fit in his office". The first example was displayed at the 1926 Ford National Reliability Air Tour. The press and public flocked to see "Ford's Flying Car," a single-seat aircraft that had very little in common with the popular Model T "Flivver." Comedian Will Rogers posed for press photos in the aircraft (although he never flew one). A New York Evening Sun columnist wrote the following poem showing excitement for the future flying Fords.
I dreamed I was an angel And with the angels soared But I was simply touring The heavens in a Ford.
The name of the aircraft, "flivver", originated from a slang word in the early twentieth century designating an inexpensive car.