Montana 500: Model Ts Doing the Impossible Since 1961
The hiss was fading, but as I sat down on the soft gravel shoulder of the road, I could still hear the steam escaping from the gap between the cylinder head and the engine block. Dark gray clouds hung low, spitting rain that was occasionally punctuated with a gust of wind that easily cut through two layers of sweaters. No other vehicles could be seen on that lonely stretch of Montana Highway 12.
If it were any other day, I would have been in a mild panic. But this wasn’t just any day, and I wasn’t in the middle of nowhere. I was driving a Model T Ford in the Montana 500, about 20 miles outside of Roundup. I shivered, and waited for the event’s “trouble truck,” with its heated cabin and flatbed trailer, to come rescue me.
Each year since 1961, a couple dozen Model T enthusiasts gather in a different Montana city for a three-day endurance run that pits drivers and their cars against nature, luck, and the clock. The goal is three days of driving, over a total distance of roughly 500 miles, in period-correct cars that are about 100 years old—think of a Model T as the Toyota Camry of the 19-teens. The goal is to have the highest average speed along the timed sections of the route. The fastest T is subjected to a communal teardown and strict tech inspection. Cars wearing updated parts or modernized systems are disqualified. Prior to actually heading west with a T for the event, this was about all the information I could find from my home in Traverse City, with the exception of a few YouTube videos showing the “old days” of the Montana 500, shot on film in the ’70s.
My whole cross-country adventure had started with a social media post by my friend Luke Chennell, a picture of a Model T overlaid with a bunch of numbers that seemed patently absurd. Luke had built the ignition coils for this car, and it had won something called the Montana 500, achieving an average speed of 54.6 mph over a total driving distance of 446 miles. Luke has been a part of some real adventures, and he rarely boasts. Luke also knows Ts: In the summers, he daily-drives a nearly bare Model T chassis around the small Kansas town he calls home.
Even with my weapons-grade Google search abilities, I came up all but empty on the who, what, when, where, and—most important—the why of the Montana 500. Over months, curiosity ate at me. Even I, a person with years of first-hand experience with prewar vehicles, viewed the Model T as a jalopy. Traveling much faster than 40 mph in a T is a testament to the mental fortitude of the driver rather than the capability of the vehicle. Who were these drivers? What had to be done to get a Model T to reach speeds over 50 mph—and for hundreds of miles? Why was it so hard to find information about this event? Stumped, and unable to get it out of my mind, I fell back on tried-and-true research methods. I called Luke, who picked up on the second ring. By the time we hung up, I had decided to check out the Montana 500 for myself.
I needed someone to document the adventure, especially if I was going to write a story about it, so my next phone call was to Josh Sweeney. The first time I met him, he was hanging out of the window of a BMW at 80 mph snapping photos of other cars on a tour. He gave an instant yes, quickly followed with the caveat that he would have to leave Montana to fly to another photoshoot in Rhode Island on Monday—meaning we couldn’t take part in the third and final day of driving. No problem, I thought. This whole endurance run seemed so preposterous that even two long days of driving in a Model T would be an accomplishment. I mailed a check for the event entry to an address I found on a previous year’s flier and sent an email to the only other contact I could find.
Now all I needed was a car. Luckily, Hagerty owns two Model T Fords. Neither was a great choice for the task at hand. Option one was a modified 1915 Touring Car that was built for a 3500-mile journey from Detroit to San Francisco in 2015 in celebration of a trip taken by Edsel Ford in 1915. After successfully completing the run, it was parked and has only run a handful of times since. Option two, an all-original 1915 Touring car with documented history of having been sold in, and having never left, Traverse City, Michigan. Really, there was only one option. After many conversations, and some light persuasion, I was granted use of the modified Touring car. The trusty, slightly modernized T came back to life after just an afternoon of tinkering. I spent another day driving around Traverse City, refreshing myself on the controls, and loaded the T into the enclosed trailer.
After 22 hours of staring west through the windshield of a borrowed Chevrolet Silverado with trailer in tow, Josh and I arrived in Roundup, Montana, at 5 p.m. on a surprisingly cool Saturday in June. Roundup is a no-stoplight town. There are two humble grocery stores, a gas station, a couple restaurants, and two murals warning against the risks of using methamphetamine. Sunburnt but rust-free pickups line the streets, hung with all manner of attachments and farm equipment. It’s hard to believe the community has stuck around for 115 years. But there we were, in Roundup, for the same reason the cattleman stopped and gave the place its name: to gather for a long drive.
We parked the Silverado on the street, drawing attention from a few kind locals, who were quick to point out they didn’t mind it taking up the street in front of their house; they were just curious what was inside that large black trailer. Pulling out the Model T for a quick joy ride about town answered all questions. After returning the car to the trailer, Josh and I walked the five blocks from our motel-plus-RV park to the other side of town in the hopes of finding a cold drink and some fried food.
A few Model Ts had already parked in the small lot of the aptly named Big Sky Motel. Most of the cars were painted vibrant shades that ol’ Henry could have never imagined when his factories were pumping out these simple, rugged Model Ts by the millions. Walking back from dinner, I was pulled towards the cars. I peered inside, using my hand to cut the glare on the glass windows. I was like a curious child, in search of whatever secret these drivers knew that I didn’t.
A kind voice cut through the parking lot saying “You must be Kyle.”
Within minutes my curiosity led Josh and me to a hotel room with its door opened to the rear of a black turtle deck roadster, staring at a pile of Bakelite and brass along with six or seven people. I was almost instantly out of my depth. Five or six boxes of ignition timers were spread out on one of the two full-size beds. Each individual timer had seemingly random numbers scrawled on them in soft pencil. Three of the men in the room were discussing fixtures, jigs, and testing rigs to be used in determining what of the pile would be worth dealing with and what might be best sold or donated. The men tossed around no fewer than eight names as sources for replacement parts—not names of brands or of stores, but of people. One of the inspectors in the room walked over and introduced himself as Larry.
Larry, I soon learned, has a $7500 custom spark plug for his Model T that measures cylinder pressure while the engine is running on a dynamometer. He produced a binder and flipped through pages of charts and graphs. “You’re only the third person to see this stuff,” he told me. We talked about the relationship between ignition timing and cylinder pressure before diving into how the ignition system of a Model T functions. The core is the magneto mounted on the engine block, but the tuning in the ignition coils is also critical, along with an accurate timer that provides a consistent spark. Larry spoke in a dialect that revealed years of education and study, and my brain struggled to translate. Effectively, I’d argue, there are still only two people who have seen the contents of that binder.
As the conversation plunged even deeper into the fine-tuning of ignition systems, Tony Cerovski, a civil engineer who has been a part of the 500 since he was 12 and has served multiple terms as president of the club that organizes it, pulled me to the side. Wisps of white hair snuck out from under a faded blue cap, whose bill sported a dark spot where he has adjusted it, with the same touch, for years, every time with just a bit of oil or grease on his fingers. Tony hasn’t built a bridge in a while, but he’s still building Model Ts.
“So you’re here to write an article.”
Yes.
“That’s all fine and good, but some of us would really appreciate it if you could do two things.”
Not sure I can make promises, but let’s hear it.
“Don’t call it a race. Also, we don’t really want a huge influx of people.”
It was immediately clear I was the outsider. Total attendance for the 500 in 2024 I learned, was expected to be about 45 people. Only two of them had been attending for less than five years: Josh and myself. Cumulatively, the people in that hotel room have been driving around Montana in Model Ts for centuries.
The first day of the rally would start on Sunday morning, but the first meeting was tonight. In one of those basketball court/meeting hall/theater stage rooms that can only be found in small-town city buildings, we gathered around tables with six or seven chairs apiece. A call to order hushed the small murmur and began a meeting of the Montana Cross Country T Association. Minutes, new business, and a report from the treasurer were all on the simple printed agenda before the main topic that had brought most to the room: the route for day one of the Montana 500. While I hung on every word, it was obvious this was purely procedural for most of the room. The phone numbers of the chase truck drivers who would be following us, in case anything went wrong, were called out of the one-speaker PA system. The availability of fuel along the route was clarified. The meeting adjourned with a reminder that the first car would leave at 7 a.m.
The next morning, my touring car was the talk of the parking lot. “You’ll never go very fast with that carb. Needs to be an NH, really.” “Who built your ignition coils?” I had to come clean: The T I had brought was a “tour-along” car. The decision hadn’t been entirely mine. The rules of the Montana 500 are strict; to be eligible to be scored, a car must be built exclusively with parts (or reproductions) that were originally on the Model T when Ford built it, between 1908 and 1927. Each Model T engine here was “set up” with the care and precision we associate with motorsports—but based on the tolerances of 19-teens automotive production. Essentially, the builders of these Montana 500 engines are taking apart a $12 Timex watch and re-assembling it as a Rolex—a 45-hp, 200-cubic inch, American cast-iron Rolex. Using that analogy, my Touring car was a $40 Casio. I would be driving with the group but not partaking in the all-important timed portions, due to some modifications that I hadn’t had time to undo, like the electronic ignition and oil filter.
Of the fifteen cars lined up in the parking lot, mine was the only one that didn’t feature an electric starter, and one of only a few with wood wheels. One man in particular took what felt like pity on me each time it came time to spin up the crank handle. Sonny and his extremely spunky labradoodle were a pairing that didn’t visually make sense until Sonny would crack a joke and his blue eyes danced with all the youth of that 8-month-old puppy. Sonny’s white hair hinted at his experience in this life, and his hands were the confirmation: Tan, checked with the white marks of small scars that come with working on aging machinery. He helped me dial-in my starting procedure until I had it down to one or two pulls, and in return asked if he could ride with us since we had empty seats. Welcome aboard, Sonny.
The last moments before the start weren’t nearly the hectic preparation my brain expected. A few people were cleaning windshields, and one was checking their car’s tire pressures, but most seemed extremely casual milling about and chatting. Multiple people in the lot had told me first-hand stories of running 70 mph in a stock Model T. It just seemed insane. I had expected this parking lot to be full of people sharpening the edges of their finely tuned speed machines, but they were smiling and drinking coffee. Every so often, as they lay in wait, one of the cars would drip a bit of oil.
Dark, heavy clouds moved in right when everyone was hoping they wouldn’t. Those in open cars, and most of those in closed cars too, put on rain gear before chuffing out of the Big Sky Motel parking lot. We decided to chance it. With Josh in the back seat snapping pictures, and Sonny in the passenger seat telling me stories of the good old days while mixing in subtle coaching, we left a full 15 minutes ahead of the first competition car.
I was not prepared for how, well, calm this would all be. My impression of a Tin Lizzie at top speed was a car that chuffed along at 40 mph with a slight wobble or shake. The steering is a little “off” by modern standards: The ratio in a T is go-kart quick, making them twitchy at higher speeds if you’re not used to it. By my accepted definition, the T I was driving was a good one.
After the first fuel stop, my busy mind finally slowed down and started taking it all in. At a certain point, the car simply could not give more. It was a strange feeling: No amount of fiddling with the throttle or spark advance would get more speed. Just about every part of the route was a 70 mph two-lane highway, meaning that even with my hand holding the throttle wide-open, we were still a mild annoyance for modern traffic. Sonny and I could just feel the wind moving the puffballs stitched to the tops of the knit hats we had bought at the gas station, and joked with each other—were we subconsciously hunching to minimize drag?
We churned up and down the rolling fields toward Grass Range, the end of the first leg of the day, a distance of about 44 miles. What the simple directions hadn’t shown was the elevation change. While Roundup sits toward the center of Montana, a good ways away from the mountains, the gentle rise and fall of the landscape is a big factor in the 500. While it was tempting to focus on the downhill speed, the veterans had told me that climbing speed separates the best from the rest. It was all about math: Your average speed takes less of a hit if you hold 40 to 45 mph on the rising grades and drive safely on the downhills and flats.
Once the reality of the drive set in, my first reaction was boredom, which was quickly eclipsed by awe. Green fields cascaded on either side of the two-lane highway, stretching away as far as I could see. For a moment, I felt trapped in the Windows 98 background, as if I were driving on a topped-out treadmill staring at a home screen. The green, unending hills were gorgeous, in an almost haunting way.
Rain started to fall before we reached Grass Range, and as we turned west towards Lewistown, it got heavier. By the first gas stop, the three of us agreed that putting the top up was worth the effort, though only with the top in place did we discover that I had driven across the country without the car’s side curtains. The top did improve the overall comfort of the driving experience, but comfort is a relative term. We all agreed we were comfortable. We were not dry.
We wouldn’t have to endure it for long, though. While making the second left turn of the day, the passenger front wheel fractured, shifting the steel rim off-center on the wooden felloe. The steering wheel yanked hard in my hands as I fought to keep the listing T on the road. Luckily all four wheels stayed on the ground, and we very ungracefully bumbled out of the intersection, wide-eyed and keenly aware of the new vibration emanating from the T.
With no spare wheel and tire, we were not going to get rolling again without help. When the dark blue Chevrolet chase truck arrived, a winch did the heavy work to get the car onto the short trailer. We shed outer layers and climbed into the truck. We were all avoiding talking about what could have happened when the wheel let go. Sonny was intimately familiar with what consequences could come from rolling a Model T, having been in one that took a tumble years earlier.
The car was stuck on the trailer until we could return to the hotel, where we had more tools and parts, so I decided to try to hitch a ride the same way Sonny had jumped in with us. At the second gas station regrouping, Mike Wendland offered an open seat.
Mike is a long-time Montana 500 participant. He drives a dark green roadster replete with full top and side curtains. There were still daylight and water leaks at every seam, but just having the panels made the interior of the car much more enjoyable as we eased out of the gas station to start the final leg of the day’s drive. Mike deftly moved both arms and his left leg to push the T up to speed. His car had no speedometer, so I had no reference for our pace as we toodled down the highway. We made casual conversation, and in between sentences, Mike made subtle adjustments to timing, periodically checking the ammeter and the oil-pressure gauge. It was clear he enjoyed driving this car.
The bright yellow T pickup driven by Eddie Wright chased us down, passed us, and left us in the dust. Mike and I joked about life on a farm as a combine harvester made its way around us during a passing lane in the road. An 18-wheeler passed us but had to work a bit to do it. Curious, I pulled my phone from my back pocket and opened an app that uses GPS to calculate speed. Mike and I were cruising along at 61 mph—calmly. In a Model T. The car was so composed that I struggled to believe we were going anything over 50.
At one point, most of the states that border Montana had some version of the 500, hosted by a different club or group. Film from the old days of the Montana 500 got posted to YouTube over the years and shows Ts drafting Greyhound buses and large trucks, along with drivers speeding through small towns and passing on the shoulder. Such wild driving antics got those sister events shut down years ago. The Montana 500 survives through proactive communication and discipline. The organizers reach out to each community their route passes through, and writes a letter to the state highway patrol to let them know where and when that year’s 500 will take place. “It’s really cut down on the number of times we would get pulled over for people just to ask, ‘What’s going on with all you guys?” Tony told me at one of the gas stops. “That’s been nice, and since most everyone behaves these days it’s been fairly easy to keep this event going when other events failed and folded.”
Mike broke my astonishment about our cruising speed by asking about the broken wheel. What was the repair plan? I wasn’t sure. Had I brought spare wheels? No, I hadn’t. I was also short on tools, but luckily the whole group reconvened in the borrowed gymnasium to hand out the tomorrow’s route, and a small group formed to check in on my plan and offer help. Eddie Wright, who had brought a full set of tools, said he would love to assist. We made a plan and went to dinner.
On the way back I stopped at the hardware store for a few supplies and walked to Eddie’s trailer. All that activity had given me just enough time to get cold feet about the fix. At the end of the day, my T wasn’t mine. It was bad enough to bring back the company car with a broken wheel, but that happens sometimes with old cars. If we attempted a repair only to cause more damage … well, I wasn’t real keen on that idea. It was already 9 p.m. and raining, and after a long day in the Model Ts, a warm shower and some sleep sounded great. I said my thank yous and have a good nights and slipped away. Before I had walked out of the parking lot, Tony Cerovski flagged me down.
“Hey, I’ve got an extra car if you’d be interested in driving it. It’s a roadster, so really only if you have rain gear, but if you’re interested …”
I might have brought a good T, but it was no purpose-built Montana 500 car. Tony’s roadster would be the real deal: He had prepared at least seven of the cars on the road this year, and, halfway through the drive, three were in the top five for average speed.
“Someone might as well be driving it, and I think you’ll like it.”
I knew how to drive a Model T, but I needed to learn how to drive one of Tony’s. A stock T has a sizeable tuning window and is fairly tolerant of having a little too much advance under load or not enough at lower RPM. Tony quickly set me straight: In Montana 500 trim, the little flathead four under the hood was carefully set up to maximize efficiency, power, and reliability—so long as I drove it right. I woke up a few hours before the sun rose and met Tony at his trailer for my lesson.
The rain began to pick up as the rest of the cars arrived at Monday’s starting point, a tiny feed store. Layered in every natural and man-made material I had to keep me dry and warm, I still had a little shiver. Writing it off as the chill and being slightly damp, I ran through Tony’s instructions again in my head, miming the actions with my hands. If I was going to embarrass myself, I didn’t want it to happen at the start, with everyone watching. When it was my turn, and the timers pointed down the road, the roadster leaped off the line. I churned through low gear, executed an awkward though successful shift into high, and settled in for the long haul.
The roadster thrummed down Highway 12 to Forsyth. As I expected, its speed was most impressive on the uphills. Only on the steepest inclines did the motor draw down, and never enough that I needed to throttle back and reach for low gear. Despite being in a well-prepared car, I had no illusions about being competitive; my newly acquired skills and comparative lack of knowledge meant I was likely to get caught by a few of the quicker Ts that started behind me.
They passed me, all right. Just a handful of miles outside of town, the roadster’s engine picked up a small miss and lost a barely noticeable amount of power. Water drove in through the floorboards on the passenger side. At first, I figured it was just the rain finding all the holes in the car, but after a small puddle formed, I could tell it had a tint of lime green. I shut off the ignition and coasted to a stop.
Larry Azevado’s coupe was one of the first few cars to pass me, and the vast nothing of the landscape allowed me to tune in on the exhaust note as he approached and passed. It didn’t sound like a Model T, but his car sure went better than any Model T I’d ever seen. The engine sounded like it wasn’t trying, but, when you account for the person building the car, there is nothing effortless about a Model T going 60 mph. That’s what tuning by cylinder pressure can get you.
As Tony pulled up in the trouble truck with trailer in tow, the look on his face said everything. When I told him the head gasket had failed, he only nodded. This was the third head gasket to fail in two days from the cars he prepared: he was sure it was a bad batch of gaskets. Thankfully, the fix was relatively simple since I did not overheat the car or run it dry. I drove the roadster onto the trailer, helped strap it down, and shed four layers of clothing before getting into the toasty warm cab for a day of chasing Model Ts.
A second day spent hitching rides in various Ts ended with a lively group dinner with Sonny and his pup. Despite the cold, a small group had formed in the parking lot of the Big Sky motel and was attempting, unsuccessfully, to start a fire in a firepit. The hands on the clock moved slowly as the group traded stories of past events, future events, and everything in between. Josh and I hung on far longer than we should have, knowing that in the morning we would be climbing into the black Silverado to start driving home.
On Tuesday, we got up and walked to the starting point to watch some folks leave for the final day of driving. The drivers of the leading cars were all dressing their ignition timers with custom tools attached to cordless drills, trying to eke out any final bits of efficiency going into the last and shortest day. The top three cars were all pretty close on average speed, right in the 54-mph pocket, so whoever ran strong today had a solid shot at the win.
Somehow we got everyone to put down the tools to take a group photo. Josh lofted his drone into the sky to get an angle wide enough to capture everyone and I lined up the cars and smiling drivers. As we began to walk towards the truck, regret tugged at me a bit. I wanted to be climbing into a T, not the Silverado. I had been so unsuccessful and relatively destructive in the last few days—quite an impression to leave. As I climbed out of the trailer after checking the straps securing the T, Tony’s smiling face greeted me. I offered him one more doughnut from the box I had picked up that morning and made my ninth and very much not final apology for damaging his car. He demurred and asked what my plan was for next year.
I told him I wasn’t sure. I doubted I’d get to use Hagerty’s T again. I didn’t have the cash, space, or time to buy another project vehicle. It would be fun to make a whole run, though, I admitted.
“Let’s stay in touch,” said Tony. “I’d bet we can find a car for you to drive next year.”
