by Marty Proctor, South Lake Tablet
There are from 100-150 Model T “Tin Lizzies” participating in all or part of the Model T Ford Winter Tour in 2022. Tin Lizzie Club of North Central Florida came whizzing through south Lake County, March 4-10.
The planner this year is Steve Ellis. He shared the following, “this is my 17th Winter Tour. This has been going on for 20 years.” While he and George Akin and their friends and families enjoyed lunch, we talked about the event. Steve continued, “it is an invitation to people to bring their model T’s to Florida and to enjoy our weather. They come from, usually, 26 to 28 States and sometimes Ireland, England, Canada. We do have an Irish couple here with us today and one English couple.” The club was founded in 2009 and the Model T Ford Winter Tour has been running for over 20 years.
Sunday, March 6th was spent driving around the Lake County lakes. Monday, March 7th, the group was seen coming up from the Green Swamp area driving north on South Lake Avenue past Lake David Park in Groveland heading toward SR50 and the east to Clermont. Many stopped at Lake David Park and enjoyed the beautiful pavilion and picnic tables to enjoy their box lunches. Beth McLaughlin of Fort Collins, Colorado one of the participants commented, “we are so grateful to these cities and their beautiful parks. I can’t wait to send them my thanks.”
Several others came over to say hello to the stranger in their midst. The group was extremely friendly and clearly included many long-time friends. On the subject of this year’s tour, Steve gushed, “we’re really celebrating being out of the COVID period right now. Everybody is so happy to be here and maskless and enjoying everything together because we are one big family. It’s about a 90% repeat rate, and we’ve done it so many times that people look forward to this much like a family reunion.”
The group started every day at their base camp, Mission Inn, Howey In The Hills. Steve continued, “we radiate roughly a 50-mile radius from there, over a five-day period. Today, we’re going to an alpaca farm and then we’ll be back in the middle of the afternoon, but we go to different places every day.”
Events Tuesday included visiting Mount Dora and the Stanley Pond Adventure Farm in Astatula for some fun, fishing, and fellowship with Sunflower Bob at their farm. Wednesday they were visiting an avian center and U-Pick strawberry farm.
While you were out rushing through traffic recently, there may have been something unique that slowed you down a bit. It could have been a line of these truly antique and classic cars. Model T’s were made from 1908 to 1927 and are generally regarded as the first affordable car. At one time 70% of the cars in the entire world were Model T Fords.
Steve shared, “it’s very probable. People will see us on the road because we generally don’t run over about 35 miles an hour. So we’re a little bit of an inconvenience, but most people find seeing a line of these cars a pleasurable experience.”
