Lot 148
1930 Ford Model AA Platform Truck
23 June 2018, 11:00 CEST
HillegomSold for €34,500 inc. premium
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1930 Ford Model AA Platform Truck
Engine no. AA3887269
Engine no. AA3887269
Ford never offered anything as a singular item. If their heavy-duty Model AA was a cocktail glass, their Platform offerings were the gin from which any number of drinks for all sorts of occasions could be crafted. Layer on stakes and you had one thing, stir with a box on top and you had another. Or just order a double and make the platform a bit bigger (or a half to make it smaller).
This Model AA type 187-A Platform Truck was the 'just right' cocktail glass that sat between the smaller 88-A, which was 68 inches wide and 97½ inches long (172.7cm by 247.7cm), and the bigger 185-B, which clocked in 75 inches wide and 132 inches long (190.5cm by 335.3cm). Measuring 75 inches by 102 inches (190.5cm by 259.1cm), the 187-A had plenty of area for loading whatever one wanted, without being too big.
Finished in black with pale yellow pinstriping and wheels, this example of the dual tyre rear axle AA is outfitted to haul barrels—and based on the signage, those would be barrels of illegally imported Canadian whiskey. Branded as operating for 'Capone Distributing' in Chicago, Illinois and touting its that it was "Serving Chicago's Finest", it is a bit anachronistic to imagine the legendary gangster and liquor smuggler Al Capone would have advertised what he was doing on the side of a truck. Nonetheless, it presents as a fun, tongue-in-cheek joke today. Nicely presented, it resided in Colorado from at least 1982 until joining the Hartogh Collection in 1996. Complete with a set of 18 whisky barrels, it could not be confirmed at the time of cataloguing whether the 'hooch' was still inside of them!