Ford Model T Coast to Coast

A photo-filled account of traveling the Lincoln Highway in a century-old automobile, and contemplating a future of self-driving cars: "[An] epic road trip." —USA Today

Driverless cars are on the horizon, but before the world falls asleep at the wheel, let's look back down the road from whence we have come. Ford Model T Coast to Coast documents the cross-country adventure of two brave drivers as they pilot a hundred-year-old Model T on a 3,000-mile journey from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Coast.

This book is as much a contemplation of early-twentieth-century American life as it is a fond farewell to the automotive age. Can the car still be the vehicle of freedom and discovery when we're no longer in command? Or will we finally be able to fully appreciate the scenery rushing past?

Accompanied by Michael Alan Ross' evocative photography, Tom Cotter stops in small towns, meets local people, and hears their stories about cars, travel, and life. The two also explore back roads adjacent to his main route, the Lincoln Highway—the first transcontinental road.

Significant cross-country runs, such as those by speed-record setter Cannonball Baker and literary adventurers Jack Kerourac, John Steinbeck, and Bill Bryson, are considered in light of the driverless future. Cotter also drives some of the same roads that a young Edsel Ford traveled in his father's Model T upon high school graduation in 1917. In addition to the central road trip, Cotter visits interesting automotive and transport museums as well as "keepers of the flame" such as Model T clubs, mechanics, junkyards, and collectors across the country. He also records the numerous trials and tribulations in keeping a very old car operating on a very long journey—something the driverless car of the future is unlikely to encounter.