MAFCA and MARC: The Two Big Model A Clubs

This piece sorts out who came first, how one grew out of the other, and what each club does for an owner today. The wider picture of the Model T and Model A hobby, with its museums and driving schools, is covered elsewhere.

MARC came first, in Connecticut

The Model A Restorers Club formed in 1952 in West Hartford, Connecticut. That date matters more than it looks. In 1952 the youngest Model A was about twenty years old, and plenty were still everyday working cars. A club with "Restorers" in its name was a statement of intent: its members wanted the cars put back the way Ford built them.

The word stuck. Both national Model A clubs began life as restorers' clubs, and that origin still shapes how each one talks about originality. When a club's founding idea is "put it back right," the arguments that follow tend to be about what "right" means, and those arguments eventually need paperwork.

How the Ford Model A Club of America split from MARC

The West Coast story starts in October 1955, when Art Grow met with members in Southern California "to start the process of forming a MARC regional club." The group took the name Model A Restorers Club of Southern California. For about two years it ran as part of the Connecticut organization, at least on paper.

Then it went its own way. The Model A Ford Club of America was officially founded in Glendale, California, on September 23, 1957, and incorporated on October 21, 1957. MAFCA's own records keep those two dates separate, and the president's message on the club's site dates the split from MARC to the October incorporation. The club's history page names Art Miller as the first president, in a photo caption, so treat that as the club's account rather than a signed minute book.

Nothing on the record says the parting was bitter, and I would not invent a feud to make the story better. What the record does show is geography. One club grew from New England, the other from Los Angeles, and in the 1950s that was a long way to drive a Model A to a meeting.

"Every club history I have ever read has a founding date, an incorporation date and a fellow in a photo caption. The one you can prove is the incorporation. The rest you repeat politely and footnote."

Wayne Coburn

The two clubs side by side

MAFCA publishes its numbers, and they are large. The club lists more than 10,000 members worldwide, over 250 local chapters and 16 Special Interest Groups, with headquarters at 250 South Cypress in La Habra, California. The Restorer comes out every two months.

MARC is harder to pin down from the outside. Its magazine is Model 'A' News, which the club's own publications list describes as appearing every other month, and the club ran a youth division in 2018 with a named youth coordinator. A current MARC membership figure is not something this article can confirm, so it will not offer one.

The chapters are where most owners actually live. A chapter is a monthly meeting, a tech session in somebody's garage and a tour on a Saturday. One MAFCA chapter in the Chicago area, A's R Us, ended up supplying Model As to Universal for the 2009 film Public Enemies. Filming began on April 25, 2008, at Crown Point, Indiana, and members logged more than 90 days on set, including a dozen Model As in one Chicago street scene. The club wrote it all up in a press release, which is the only reason anyone can now say so with confidence.

Meets, judging and the one rulebook they share

Both clubs hold national gatherings, on different schedules. MAFCA national meets run every two years, in even-numbered years, and divisional meets may fill the odd years. MARC holds its own national conventions. The one at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in June 2012 drew more than 400 cars, and the tie-on plate numbers ran to at least 462.

Here is the part that surprises newcomers. For all their separate magazines and meets, the two clubs judge cars by the same book. The Model A Restoration Guidelines and Judging Standards is a joint MARC and MAFCA product, and the current Revision 5 runs to 590 pages, developed over five years by the two clubs' judging committees. The first joint pamphlet appeared in 1974, at 26 pages. How that book is used on the show field is a story of its own.

The book is the reason a Model A judged in California and one judged in Wisconsin are held to the same standard. It is also the reason owners argue about it with such energy. Nobody fights over a rule that does not matter.

Which club should a new owner join?

If you live near an active chapter of either club, join that one first. The national organization sends the magazine; the chapter lends you the tool you do not own and tells you which swap meet vendor to avoid.

If you plan to show a car for points, the choice matters less than you might think, because both clubs work from the same standards. If you care about the club's published record, MAFCA's is easier to read from the outside: the founding dates, the size of the club and the magazine's run are all set out in its own history.

The clubs also kept the record of cars that left the factory with a story attached. A May/June 2001 article in The Restorer traced the 20 millionth Ford, a 1931 Model A, from its national tour to its arrival at the Henry Ford Museum in December 1931. That is what a club magazine is for. Somebody went and checked.

Both clubs exist because of a changeover: the car that replaced the Model T Henry Ford had built for nineteen years. The factory moved on in 1932. The clubs picked the story up where it left off, and they have been keeping the paperwork ever since.

Sources and notes

• MAFCA: club history (founding, first president, The Restorer)
• MAFCA president's message on the MARC origins and the 1957 split
• Model A Restoration Guidelines and Judging Standards, Revision 5
• MAFCA Judging Procedures Manual (national meet cycle)
• A's R Us chapter press release on Public Enemies (2008)
• Old Cars Weekly on the 2012 MARC national convention at Oshkosh