While the VW Beetle was conceived as the “People’s Car” in the 1930s, it was really the Ford Model T that was the first affordable automobile. It had an impressive nearly 20-year run from 1908 to 1927 and sold more than 15 million copies in the process, in a variety of body styles. The seller has two of these ancient autos, one from the Model T’s earliest days and another from when production was beginning to wind down. Located in Mansfield, Texas, the pair is available as a package deal here on craigslist for $8,500. Another sleuthing tip from T.J.!

Few people are alive today who were around when Henry Ford introduced what would become known as the “Tin Lizzie”. Most attempts at car building before the Model T resulted in cars that the vast majority of Americans wouldn’t be able to afford (tailored more to the rich and famous). Ford set about to change all that and the Model T became so popular so fast that most Americans owned one, and it changed our culture forever, people being able to get to places faster and farther away. This relied on mass mechanization which Henry Ford was able to master at the turn of the 20^th Century.

What the Model T wasn’t was fast or terribly comfortable that its successor – the Model A – would rectify just prior to the start of the Great Depression. The last Model T was built in May 1927. The seller has managed to squirrel away two of these breakthroughs in American transportation and they were built 18 years apart. We assume the 1908 edition photographed is the one that looks like a rolling chassis. The other, a 1926 version, looks more complete.

When the buyer takes these machines home, a ton of spare parts will be a part of the deal. Whether there’s enough here to restore both automobiles isn’t suggested, but you could end up with some spares of spares. We’re told that the 1908 “T” still has its wood spoke wheels, which were how car wheels were made before steel took over.