There was an AAer meeting on Friday, August 4, 2023 at 2:00—3:00 PM during the MARC National meet in Hamilton, OH. There was no meeting host this year. Consequently, it was basically an AAer gathering without an agenda.

Ken Ehrenhofer volunteered to lead a discussion around the room where AA’ers shared about their AA’s. Thanks to Ken for taking the lead.

There were three AA trucks at the meet which are shown here. Two of these AA’s were entered for blue ribbon judging:

• 1928 (early) AA Stake Truck – Brian Jensen owner – 476 points
• 1928 AA Express – Bill Schwendeman owner – not shown this year
• 1929 (early) AA Platform (original) – Michael Etling Jr. owner – 389 Points

The Ford Model AA Truck Club meeting was Monday, June 6, 2022, 2:30PM—3:30PM at the MARC National Meet in Morgantown, PA.

Keith Ernst hosted this meeting. Keith brought his current project, a 1929 AA chassis that has some unusual features. It has one of the early style bevel gear rears (luckily a high-speed one). In addition, it has a complete set of the Erie cast steel wheels with dual wheels on the rear axle.

Keith brought his original late 1930 AA Compressor Truck.  It is a good example that has the upper seat metal brackets spot-welded to the cab back.

Keith also hosted a side-trip after the meeting to his place 49 miles North of Morgantown.

Keith’s collection has AA’s, an AAB, a Canadian AAC, and other early Fords. In addition, he has a collection of early Internationals, and some of the early trucks made in Pennsylvania (Mack, Maccar, Atlas, Vim, Bethlehem, Hahn, Clinton, Seldon, Rowe, and Kearns to name a few). There was lots to look at.

The AA’s at the meet are shown in the gallery below.

Judging awards were as follows:

Fine Point Judging:

• Doug Lewis’ 1928 AA Grain Truck – 460 points (MARC of Excellence and Ray Matthews awards)
• Matt Baker’s 1929 AA Dump Truck – 439 point (Masters award)
• Michael Etling, Jr’s 1931 AA Fire Truck – 406 points (MARC of Excellence award)
• Russ Smith’s 1928 AA Express Truck – 355 points (MARC of Originality and Roger Kauffman awards)
• Russ Smith’s 1930 AA Oil Tanker Truck – 346 points (MARC of Originality award).

Touring Class Judging:

• Bill Schwendeman’s 1928 AA Express Truck – Second Place

The 2020 MARC National Meet was rescheduled for June 2021 (just a covid thing). The FMAATC Meeting was held 6/8/21 8:00—10:00 AM.

Thanks to Frank Mastro for giving his presentation a year late. Frank covered how to convert a TT-to-AA express. The presentation included a slid show, live conversion example, and related 89-A express parts.

The Ford Model AA Truck Club meeting was Friday, August 9, 2019 (3:45 PM to 4:45 PM) at the MARC national meet in Dearborn, MI.

Jordon Beller hosted and lead a discussion about his 1931 AA Service Car.

There were thirteen AA’ers which attended the meeting.

Photos of eight AA’s at the meet are below.

The club meeting was changed to June 29th (Friday). It was at the same time Jordan Beller’s Ad seminar, so Keith took on hosting the club meeting.

Keith gave a power point presentation on accessories for the trucks. The presentation included items such as governors, wheels, Warford overdrive transmissions, tandem rear axles, spare wheel locks, and a service recorder.

There were 10-12 in attendance. Some members were disappointed because they couldn’t stay until Friday for the rescheduled meeting.

A search of the Internet shows that there were five AA’s at the meet.

The club meeting was Friday, August 4th and was hosted by Keith Ernst. There were about 25 AA’er at the meeting. Keith did a power point presentation of many kinds of truck accessories and had actual samples on display. As usual, members talked about their AA’s.

Keith sends his apologies to any AA’er who missed the meeting. It got rescheduled by the host club’s powers-to-be from Tuesday to Friday without notification.

There were eight AA’s at the meet as shown in the gallery. I hope none were missed.

An AA seminar was held June 21st, 10:30am to 12:00pm and was attended by about fifty people. It was presented by Neil Wilson and provided an overview of AA vehicles showing the different types of chassis, cabs, open cargo body types, and closed body types which rolled off the Ford assembly lines starting in late 1927 through early 1932.

The AA Fords site was used to display many site images for viewing onto two large screens.

The site includes an “AA Fords Overview” page which replicates the AA Seminar information with the following topics.

• AA Production Summary
• Why “Ford Model AA”
• Abbreviations – Terms
• Major AA Conversion Dates
• Ford Model AA Lineup
• AA Fords Overview Tour

There was a Ford Model AA Truck Club meeting on June 21, 1:00pm through 3:00pm. There were twenty AA’er attending. Most of those attending also attended the AA seminar held in the morning. Some information was provide regarding this club website. Each attendee talked about their AA project(s).

There was a photo shoot get together the same day starting at 7:00pm. Larry Duvanel’s 1928 AA Stake Truck was the only AA present. I got some great photographs.

The Ford Model AA Truck Club meeting was held on Monday, June 27, from 1:00 – 2:30pm at the Perrysburg, Ohio MARC National Meet.

The meeting was coordinated by Jordon Beller with about twenty-five attendees. There was a slide presentation and time for an open meeting and discussion among those attending.

This year’s national MARC meet was held in a great area with Niagara Falls in the view of the hotel and many of its rooms. There were many road trips scheduled and lots of Model A’s as well as the Beller’s in their AA seen traveling all over the area. Most seminars and the swap meet were held in the offsite “Gale Hockey Arena”. A very nice facility.

FMAATC Meeting Coordinator Dan Gambill and his wife, Lisa conducted the June 22nd club meeting (11 AM – 12:30 PM). There were 17 attendees, eleven were members and two indicated they wanted to join.

There was a raffle of the FMAATC past newsletter CD which was won by Everett Hessels. The T-shirt raffle was won by Joseph Menko. It was donated by Chris Dohnke. Thanks to Chris his donating a quality T-shirts for the raffle.

There was a brief summary of club history followed by each attendee describing their AA. This was followed by a review of the site information for the Ford Model AA Truck Club @ aafords.com.

Keith also had pictures of the unique indented doors used for the 85-B Panel Delivery, 300-A De Luxe Delivery, and 280-A Ambulance. The presentation ended with pictures and a discussion of a Bud Wheel adapter for worm drive axles and the dual high transmission.

A second presentation by Keith covered his Canadian AA. There was an opportunity to see Jack Langen’s 1928 Canadian AA in the parking lot at the meet. Most interesting was the discussion of the cable and pulleys lift for the cargo body and Keith’s detailing of the open drive-line. His truck has a single, brake cable system which ran thru the whole system via pulleys. As usual, Jordon Beller provided lots of input and pointed out interesting items noting the Canadian front fender splash apron was two parts spot welded together.

No AA’s attended the scheduled photo shoot. But the three AA at the meet were found and photographed – Jack Langen’s 1928 AAC Canadian Stake Truck, Jordon Bellers’ 1929 AA Open Cab Stake Truck, and Jim Vaughan’s 1930 AA Closed Cab with 5th wheel.

Dan Gambill, FMAATC Meeting Coordinator and his wife, Lisa, once again conducted this June 23rd. meeting, following up on the meeting in 2012.

This June 23rd. club meeting, while including the necessary and interesting review of the club, its purpose, latest accomplishments (such as the new website) and status update on the many projects, there was a discussion of the attendees AA’s and a pictorial presentation of many AA’s in commercial applications in the US which fostered much discussion of the many features of each truck.  The audience was very keen to pick out many details.

The meeting began with a raffle of a FMAATC T-shirt donated by Chris Dohnke.  Chris undertook the T-shirt project on his own and as seen in the Double A’er, are of high quality with a good design.

The audience’s discussion of their own AA’s was very interesting with most describing their AA’s as “Grain Beds”.  One attendee talked of his on-going project restoring his grandfather’s truck.

Many others spoke of how they learned to drive by driving the family AA on the farm was young children and others described how they found their AA’s, some of which were humorous, 1 person spoke of how they later found and purchased an AA their family had sold years earlier.

Ken Dust discussed his AA that he drove from New York to Washington State.  He has driven his Platform AA on the streets of New York City and into Canada.  Jim Shield was also in attendance described his recently completed project.

Ron Ehrenhofer gave a good discussion of getting engineering drawings from the Benson Ford Research Center-much praise and appreciation was given for the valuable work performed by George DeAngelis, who secured and made the drawings available.

Everyone completed the sign-in sheet, T-shirts on Chris’ behalf and decals were sold.  The meeting ended with a discussion of the scheduled FMAATC Photo shoot which was a success.

FMAATC Meeting Coordinator Dan Gambill and his wife, Lisa conducted this July 15 meeting. The meeting had a good turnout and started with many asking for Neil Wilson, President, offering much praise and appreciation for his knowledge and help. Many offered their own stories of President Wilson’s help.

This meeting benefited from a FMAATC T-shirt donated by Chris Donke. Chris, a FMAATC member, made the effort to have FMAATC T-shirts made for resale (at a very low price) for club members. They are of high quality with a good club logo. His efforts are appreciated. The T-shirt was won by George Kaitis, member of the club sponsoring the meet, working our meeting collecting tickets. There was also a raffle for a Double A’er CD. This was won by Fred Palmiero.

Following the raffles, each attendee gave a discussion about their AA’s. Jerry Lubinski spoke of his rare 1931 Service Car that was in judging. Jerry offered much recognition for President Wilson, who determined that Jerry’s AA (purchased with a platform body) started life as a Service Car, based on the 3 holes in the cab corners.

Craig Landon’s gave a discussion of his 1931 AA Express Truck with Canopy that had been in the Nov/Dec 2013 Restorer and was also in for judging. Craig similarly praised Neil’s help during the restoration.

Next, the meeting moved to a discussion of the many project’s, accomplishments by President Wilson, making note of the development and growing content of the new www.aafords.com site. Some had already seen the website and liked it.

Following on the discussion of the club, a review of the pictorial presentation, AA’s Build America. Many of the folks enjoying the many pictures of AA’s contribution to commerce and construction. The pictures were of similar AA contributions to those mentioned by the attendees of their AA’s – These stories of AA’s are extra interesting since each AA contributed to the commerce and development of the U.S.

The meeting concluded with Craig Landon talking of the engineering drawings he had used in the restoration of his Express/Canopy. Craig had ordered them from the Benson Ford Research Center.

Keith Ernst was the FMAATC meeting coordinator. Keith shared pictures of some of his AA truck collection showing some of the unusual body styles and features.

There was a “Guess What This Is?” session. It was a series of pictures for attendees to guess what was being shown (an unusual part or the markings on it). There was Dual-Duty tandem axle truck, AA panel truck side door, special hubcap and spoke wheel on a 1931 hearse, a Canadian AAC front fender, the difference between a standard indented door and a deluxe one, and a right front welled fender from a AA mail truck just to mention a few.

The 30 some attendees introducing themselves and talking about their trucks. A couple from the Adirondack A’s of New York spoke about their Youth Program (15 kids restoring an early 1930 AA stake truck).

Two of the registered AA’s were entered in fine point judging. Keith Ernst’s 1931 197-A Canopy AA Express received 444 points, Master Restoration, and Ray Matthews awards. Rob Mills’ 1929 AA Fire Truck with fire apparatus by Boyer won the Roger Kauffman Award for the best original vehicle at the meet. David Morton’s AA mail truck was seen at the meet’s entrance. There was a 1928 AA Tow Truck and a 1931 AA Bus also present at the meet.

Dan Gambill, FMAATC Meeting Coordinator along with his wife, Lisa, conducted the meeting.  This meeting continued the message started in 2011 of reintroducing FMAATC to the nation.   This meeting was an opportunity to reach audiences in the eastern part of the country building on the message in 2011 meeting in the west.

The meeting’s focus was an introduction and discussion of FMAATC membership benefits, including an introduction and review of the club’s leadership, President and Vice-President, via power point slides.  There was discussion of FMAATC’s history, review of newsletter articles, Web-forums and projects.

The discussion also included review of the new CD.  This review was supplemented with a brief quiz of pictured Model AA’s and discussion of a AA calendar.  The meeting concluded with a request for suggestions.  Suggestions included:  How to repair a worn 4-speed shifter, more coverage of the long 157 inch wheelbase trucks, unique dump and fuel haulers and the 1928-29 bevel gear.  5 AA’s attended the meet.

Pictures were taken of attending AA’s.  A sign-in sheet was circulated and signatures of the 20 attendees obtained.  Sales of the Double A’er on CD were recorded.  3 CD’s were sold.

Dan Gambill, FMAATC Meeting Coordinator along with his wife, Lisa, conducted the meeting.

Since many of the attendees had also attended the meeting at the National MARC Meet the week before, this meetings focus moved past the introduction of the club, beginning with an expanded quiz of Model AA Truck pictured fostering various questions about each and discussion.

Prior FMAATC president, Bill Cilker, suggested that Attendees describe their AA’s.  Each attendee then stood up describing their many AA’s – Many interesting stories were heard, such as the attendee, from the east coast, drove his AA Cab/Chassis to Washington State to attend college in the 70’s.

There was also much discussion of the open cab gravity dump AA’s used during construction of Hoover dam.

Bill again spoke-up, describing at length his role with the joint national club’s Judging Standards update of the Commercial section.

The meeting also benefited from Ken Erhenhofer’s slide show and description of a monumental auction and of the bus he purchased to restore-There were many pictures and much discussion.

A sign-in sheet was circulated with 24 signatures of attendees.  2 Double A’er CD’s were sold.

There were sixteen AA’er attending this Ford Model AA Truck Club meeting including the club founder and first president Bill Cilker.

Dan Gambill was the meeting coordinator and headed up the presentations. Dan is the club’s volunteer Meetings/Products Coordinator.

AA’s at this meet are shown in the gallery below.

There was a review of the research methodology used for articles found in the Double A’er newsletter including acquiring information and photographs from the Benson Research Center.

Some AA Truck Talk article examples were reviewed to highlight the Double A’er newsletter’s variety of information. A slide presentation entitled “Ford Model AA Wheel Carrier Assemblies” was given.