Warwick man is restoring a Ford Model T from the ground up

WARWICK — Jimmy Pakuris has stripped his late 1914 Ford Model T Tourer convertible down to the frame and now he is building it back up again.

“All said and done, it will be brand new,” he said, adding the project will take more than a year. Given his experience and judging by the quality of the work he’s already done, it’s easy to believe him.

The car, which is registered and insured, is currently little more than a frame on wheels. And even the wheels are stripped to their metal rims and wooden spokes.

The restored cylindrical gas tank sits astride the sand-blasted black frame, which is divided between the engine and passenger compartments by a temporary dashboard. The running boards have been attached.

The steering wheel looms over the dashboard, which is equipped with the restored coil box and two kerosene parking lamps. The brass radiator is framed by the two acetylene driving lamps. He said he has also rebuilt the engine.

He said he gets Model T parts from such suppliers as Lang’s Old Car Parts in Winchendon, Mass.

And that’s it. The open body with its two bench seats is a rusted shell tucked behind a fence. It has three doors, with the driver sliding across from the passenger-side door. As the wags had it, the driver of such a car had to be a fool and thus protected from falling out.

“I bought it from a fellow in Iola, Kansas,” he said, adding that the seller, Mark Fremillier of Model T Haven, found it in Oregon where it sat in a field for many years.

He said he had bought another 1914 to restore but it had not worked out. “It didn’t look right,” he said, and he sold it.

He said many Model Ts were scrapped for the war effort in the 1940s. Others were converted.

“After World War II, returning servicemen wanted motorcycles, hot rods, street rods, T-Buckets,” said his father, Sparky Pakuris of Sparky’s Auto Detailing.

Pakuris said he would be dedicating his completed car to “the servicemen who did not return” to work on cars.

“One guy did not make it back to restore this car,” he said. “It will be dedicated to all the soldiers who did not make it back.

“Boy, I want to see this thing when it’s done,” he said the truck driver told him when he delivered it from Kansas in September 2011. He said the driver told him people were asking about it at every truck stop he went into.

“Oh, oh, what did I get myself into,” Pakuris said he thought to himself.

But Pakuris is very well versed in Model Ts. He is a member of the Model T owners of Southern New England, and restored his first, a 1917 model, after he graduated from high school; it was a graduation present. Other Model Ts he has owned and worked on include 1915, 1924 and 1925 models.

He said it had been a restoration project which had helped him heal from two accidents, one where he almost lost his foot and the other where he almost died. “It was a healing process,” he said, adding that he still owns the car.

In an adjoining workshop were two restored Ford Model Ts that he said he and his father had worked on the 1980s — a 1924 Model T panel delivery truck/pie wagon and a 1925 Model T depot hack, which he said was used at train stations.

“I’m familiar with the hobby, I know every part on the (Model T),” he said, adding, “The 1914 was a pretty car, one of the last of the brass era. (It was) the car I had my heart set on.”

He also cited research that argued that 1914 was the first year of the “any color so long as it’s black” policy

“Maybe I’m a little crazy for taking on such a project,” he added. “There’s not many fellows my age restoring Model Ts.”

He said from 1914 on, the trim on Model Ts was increasingly black. The car was the first affordable automobile and Ford produced some 15 million Model Ts between 1908 and 1927.

“(The Model T) was simple so everyone could afford one and could work on one,” said Pakuris. “Ford never put anything on the car that was not needed to run.”

Pakuris, 41, works with his father, Sparky Pakuris, at Sparky’s Auto Detailing in Warwick.

The next step will be assembling the wood body. Pakuris showed off the precut pieces of ash, each one labeled like the plastic pieces of a model airplane.

“F. Seat Back,” was written on one in blue marker.

He said he received the parts in three boxes from Snyder’s Antique Auto Parts in New Springfield, Ohio, just last week and hoped to have it assembled by Thanksgiving of next year.

“You need patience and I have plenty of that,” he said.