1931: The Model A's Final Year

For the wider arc of the car, from the 1927 shutdown to the record 1929 season, see how the Model A saved Ford. This piece stays inside the final twelve months.

1931 Ford Model A history in production numbers

Start with output, because 1931 is defined by it. Ford built 1,155,162 passenger cars in the United States in 1930. In 1931 the figure was 541,615. The Henry Ford, the museum in Dearborn, puts it plainly: the Depression halved Ford's annual production to about 541,000 cars. Trucks fell from 272,897 to 186,394 over the same two years, so the all-vehicle US total dropped from 1,431,574 to 731,601.

Those are figures for US plants, usually read as calendar years, and they come from the production tables rather than from any single press release. They also explain the sales chart. Ford had passed Chevrolet in 1929 to take back first place in US sales. In 1931 Chevrolet took it back. The Model A was in its fourth season, and buyers were scarce for everyone: total US vehicle output across the industry went from 5,337,000 in 1929 to 1,332,000 in 1931.

One correction belongs here. A figure that circulates online says Ford stopped the Model A and closed the Rouge on August 1, 1931, laying off 60,000 workers. The source for it is weak, and the production records do not support a clean August stop for the car. Treat that date with caution until a primary document turns up.

What changed on the 1931 cars

Ford did not coast through the final year. The changes were modest, and most of them are visible to a judge with a clipboard.

The stainless radiator shell gained a body-color accent. The splash shields became one-piece stampings. A new instrument panel arrived in April 1931. Laminated safety glass became an option partway through the year. Under the car, brake drums changed from stamped steel on steel hubs to cast iron, still 11 inches in diameter. The 19-inch wheels and 4.75 tire section introduced for 1930 carried over, as did the 11-gallon cowl fuel tank. And from July 1931, a Tacoma Cream stripe replaced the earlier stripe on several body styles, one of the small details that matters when you study the colors of a late car.

Prices came down slightly. The 1931 list, f.o.b. Detroit, ran from $430 for the Roadster to $640 for the new Convertible Sedan.

The bodies that only exist as 1931s

For a factory historian, the most useful thing about 1931 is the list of style numbers that appear in no other year. The production records name them as the DeLuxe Tudor (built on the 55-B body that the standard Tudor had used since 1930), the 68-C slant-windshield Cabriolet, the 160-A, 160-B and 160-C slant-windshield Fordor, Town Sedan and DeLuxe Fordor, the 400-A Convertible Sedan, the 66-A DeLuxe Pickup and the 78-B wide-bed pickup box.

The 160-series Fordors arrived in March 1931. Ford had Murray and Briggs build identical bodies with interchangeable parts, and their door windows follow the Murray arched design. The 68-C Cabriolet followed in May. The Convertible Sedan, style 400-A, entered production on May 22, 1931, went on public sale in June and was the last body style added to the Model A line. About 5,085 were built, 208 of them at Ford plants abroad. The DeLuxe Tudor, on the 55-B body, came in June.

The Victoria, introduced in November 1930, did most of its business in 1931. Two auction catalogs disagree slightly on the first run, giving 6,306 or 6,447 built in late 1930; nearly 37,000 followed in 1931, so the defensible total is roughly 43,000. Pickups held up better than most cars: 98,116 Model A pickups were built in 1931, of which 2,637 were roadster pickups.

When did the Model A really end?

Here the two calendars matter. Henry Ford decided in October 1931 that the 1932 car would have a V8. That decision closed the Model A as a model: 1931 was its last model year, and there was no 1932 Model A in the US catalog.

Assembly is another matter. US production wound down in late 1931, but the build did not stop everywhere at once. Ford of Canada and the overseas plants kept going, and the last units, mainly Canadian, about 1,482 of them, came off the lines in 1932. Final assembly ended in March 1932. The precise date of the last US-built Model A has not been documented in the sources I have seen, and I would rather leave it open than invent one.

Abroad, 1931 was a beginning as much as an ending. Ford's Cologne plant started production on May 4, 1931, with the Model A. The new Dagenham plant in England opened in October 1931, and its first vehicle was a Model AA truck.

"People ask me which date the Model A ended. I give them two. October 1931 is when Ford stopped thinking about it. March 1932 is when the plants stopped building it. Both are true, and a car built in between is still a 1931."

Tom Ramirez

How many were built, and what came next

The total depends on which source you trust, and the sources do not agree. The Model A club registry and one sales history give 4,849,340 cars of all body styles from October 1927 to March 1932. Wikipedia gives 4,858,644. A third figure, about 4.3 million, appears to count US cars only, or to stop in August 1931. The fair summary is about 4.85 million Model As worldwide, built over roughly four and a half years of assembly and four model years.

Set that against the car that came before it and the scale is clear. The Model T ran from 1908 to 1927 and passed 15 million; the Model A reached about a third of that in a fraction of the time, and much of it after the 1929 crash. The longer arc is in the Henry Ford Model T history.

The successors arrived on March 31, 1932: the Ford V8, Model 18, and the four-cylinder Model B, whose 201 cubic inch four now made 50 hp.

For a buyer today, the 1931 car is the most refined Model A, with the most body choices and the most year-only details to check against the style numbers above. If that is the car you want, start with the current listings of 1931 Model A Fords for sale, and bring the body tag list with you.

Sources and notes

• The Henry Ford: Ford Motor Company production statistics
• The Henry Ford: 1931 Ford Model A DeLuxe Roadster
• MAFCA: Model A body style codes
• MAFCA: Model A new car prices by year
• Ford Garage: the 20 millionth Ford
• RM Sotheby's: 1931 Ford Model A Victoria