Club History

History of the Greater Baltimore Model A Ford Club

With no local Model A Ford Club in the Baltimore area, Bruce and Greta Hittle decided to take the initiative to start one. They convinced other local clubs to run announcements in newsletters and after several months found enough Model A enthusiasts to begin meeting. The first two meetings were held at Dad’s Old Cars in Harford County, and on March 28, 1990, the group petitioned the Model A Ford Club of America for recognition as a Chapter. In that first year, twenty three families became members; today, ten years later, we still have twelve of those original families as active members.

Having outgrown the space available at Dad’s Old Cars rather quickly, the Club moved to the Lincoln Technical Center in Baltimore where meetings were held in a classroom for six years.

In November 1992, realizing that the overall philosophy of the membership was more in keeping with that of the Model A Restorers Club (MARC), we began the process to also become a MARC Region. Today our Club is still affiliated with both National Model A groups, although more closely aligned with MARC. Most of our members hold dual memberships in both National clubs. In 1996, we had the honor of hosting the MARC National Membership Meeting. Although we were not a large Region, many of our members participated enthusiastically, which helped to make the undertaking much more manageable.

As the Club continued to grow and more parking space was needed as attendance at meetings increased, we moved our meeting site to the Automotive Wing of Catonsville Community College in 1996, where we remain today.

Ours is a very active club with a great diversity of members, all of whom share a single common bonding element: our Model A’s. Our club activities include retiree tours, hands-on workshops, parts auctions, fashion shows, technical seminars, and an annual car show. But touring in our Model A’s remains the favorite activity of many of our members. Our first organized tour was to the MARC National Meet in Buffalo, New York, in 1992. Since then, we have toured to all of the National Meets except for the Joint Meet in Washington State.

A number of our members have also found a variety of ways to share their Model A’s with others. Some have taken their cars to local schools to introduce the children to the romance and history of Henry Ford and his Model A. Others have visited retirement homes with their A’s, bringing many a smile and twinkle to the eyes of residents as they recall fond memories of past experiences. No matter the age, school children or senior citizen, all it takes is one good “AH-OOOO-GAH” to bring forth laughter.

 

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