FORT SILL, Okla.--Visitors to the Old Post Quadrangle June 8, may have thought they were in an episode of the old TV show "The Untouchables" when they saw 19 Model A Fords parked outside the Fort Sill Museum administrative office.
The cars, which were built between 1927 and 1931, were part of a national Model A Touring Club whose owners were visiting Fort Sill as part of their tour of Oklahoma. Over the next two weeks, the club members will drive their coups, sedans, roadsters, station wagons and panel delivery cars more than 1,000 miles as they visit Duncan, Oklahoma City, Gutherie, Tulsa, Bartlesville, Ponca City and Cheyenne, Okla.
Club member Dwayne Roark, a farmer and rancher in Cheyenne, Okla. helped organize the tour and stage it from there.
"Our goal is to drive our Model A's," Roark said, "we've been to Europe, and we're going to New Zealand next year."
At the museum, the visitors toured the facility, the quadrangle, Warrior Journey Gallery and Cavalry Barracks, said Michele Mabry, Fort Sill Museum facility manager.
The club left Cheyenne June 7 for Fort Sill, and Roark wanted its members to learn about Oklahoma.
"People who aren't from Oklahoma don't know anything about Oklahoma," he said.
The club is limited to 100 members, and virtually all of them are retirees. They come from all over Canada, South Dakota, California, Texas and Ohio, said Roark, who has been a member since 2000.
The Model A car is still popular because almost 5 million were built. It was the first car for many teenagers in 1940s and '50s, and many parts are still available, Roark said.
And as far as car hobbies, Model A's aren't as expensive as a lot of the others.
The Model A has four cylinders and a 200-cubic inch engine, Roark said. They'll get up to about 55 mph, but on club tours very little driving is done on the Interstate.
"We like to drive the slower roads and see the country," he said.
Many of the club members have accessorized their cars with seatbelts, bigger tail lights and added citizen's band radios to keep in touch while driving as part of a caravan, Roark said.
How many Model A's does Roark own' "Never enough," he said. Actually he and his wife, Juhretta own about 24 or 25, he said.
For the Fort Sill visit, Roark drove a 1929 Deluxe Delivery, which he acquired about 12 years ago and rebuilt. It was kind of the mini-van of its day. A couple jewelry and flower delivery corporations needed cars smaller than the big delivery cars then available, so the businessmen talked Henry Ford into building the Deluxe Delivery, Roark said.
Roark also drives a 2007 pickup truck, and it's made by the same company who made all his Model A's.
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