Pacific resident Palmer Lawson is on a first name basis with the nation’s best known auto maker. The late Henry Ford is an icon of Americana – hands down one of the best known Americans of all generations, up there with Abraham Lincoln, Charles Lindberg, or John Wayne.
Still when people refer to the creator of the Model T they give you the full name, “Henry Ford.” Hardly anyone would know who you were talking about if you simply said “Henry,” as Lawson does. And just saying Ford could refer to any number Ford grandchildren and grandchildren.
But to Palmer Lawson, the old car builder is simply “Henry.” The name rolls off his tongue with ease.
“Henry built 19 million Model T’s between 1907 and 1927,” Lawson said.
It was he first affordable car of the 20th Century but it was Henry’s next car, the Model A, that captured Lawson’s imagination.
In 1927 Henry Ford retired the Model T. He shut down the Ford plant for seven months and developed the Model A. To this date, it is still considered the most anticipated auto in history. In three years Henry would sell 5 million Model A’s. Many are still in operation today. And Lawson has dedicated his retirement to keeping them running.
In retirement, at age 83, Palmer spends six to eight hours a day in his workshop rebuilding one of the Model A’s that is still running 90 years after the last one rolled off the assembly line.
Classic & Sports Car 2012 Buyer’s guide proclaimed Henry Fords Model A to be “one of the simplest vintage cars to own” and praised it for being “strongly built,” “easy to maintain” and “well supported with spares”.
“They are a wonder,” Palmer said. “Easy to work on. And, Henry gave every new owner a repair kit to keep them running.”
No one knows for certain how many Model A’s are still running. And Palmer does not know how the owners find him. But they keep showing up at his shop. At any given time he can have four Model A engines in his shop. Getting one running again can take two weeks, if you count the time ordering and waiting for parts. It takes at least three full days to rebuild the engine.
He rebuilt his first Model A engine in 1980 when he purchased a Model A and sent the engine out to be rebuilt. But the engine he got back was not in good operating condition.
“They did a terrible job,” Palmer said. “So I decided to rebuild it myself.”
He soon found himself rebuilding Model A engines as a business
He is thorough. He disassembles the engine to determine which parts need to be ordered and orders the parts. “Every rebuild job gets all new parts,” he said. He cleans the block in a machine so powerful it strips the paint off.
He disassembles the engine, inspects all parts including the crankshaft and block. Resurfacing the head and manifold faces. Re-grind the piston and valve bores to a mirror finish. Installs all the new parts and cranks it up.
Working in his basement and outdoor workshop, Palmore has restored literally hundred of Model A engines to good running order. He had four on his workbench as of this printing.
He has a rule, the owner has to pick up the engine so he can observe Palmer prove that it is running before he takes it out of the shop.
It would be misleading to think of him as a simple tinkerer. His mechanical background is wide-ranging. He attended college at Northwest Missouri College and then transferred to the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy in Rolla, which today is known as the Missouri University of Science and Technology. After college he worked for North American Aviation on the Minuteman missile guidance system, McDonnell Aircraft, the Pea Ridge Iron Mine near Sullivan, and St. Joseph Lead Company, which later became Doe Run, a job that lasted for over 30 years.
His favorite Model A rebuild was a speedster he rebuilt with friend Dean Bittick. The red boat-tail speedster won three trophies at the St. Francis Borgia Spring Fest auto show in Washington several years ago, the car also won national awards at the World Model A Ford Meet in Dallas, Texas.
“Henry knew how to build a car that the ordinary driver could keep running,” he said. He proves it every day.
