I learned a new word

[Don Jordan]

I'm not sure if it's a regional word - I know it's old. I'm reading a book about Pretty Boy Floyd and the author keeps referring to a "flivver". I'd never heard of such a thing.

Without looking it up (as I had to do) am I the only one that has never heard the word before?

I'm born and raised California. Floyd came from Oklahoma and I was thinking it might be a local word.

Just thought I'd pass it along.

[PatS....]

I think it is slang for a Model T Ford

Edited October 13, 2011 by PatS....

[TodFitch]

I think it is slang for a Model T Ford

Ditto. That is my understanding. I think it was pretty common across the country in the 1920s and into the early 30s. I haven't a clue where it came from though.

[Don Jordan]

I knew it was a car but from what I can find it's not a specific car. I guess it's just an old bucket. Any old car.

I don't remember what they called Fords. I believe the Chevy was a Tin Lizzy - but I'm not sure where that came from.

[pflaming]

Here is one answer. I don't know if its valid but it makes sense.

"IF you'd ever heard a Model T running you'd know... they have a nasal wheezie sound like "fliver fliver fliver" over and over. They were refered to as "flivers" because of it and it has been thus since. Go to an antique auto show sometime and listen to one. You'll have to smile !!! "

Read more: The word fliver was used to reference the model t ford and some early airplanes. does anyone know the origin of the word fliver and what it referred to prior to the above uses? | Answerbag http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/766222#ixzz1ajdEvjJ5

[normanpitkin]

frank sinatra..it's nice to go travellin' !!

[B-Watson]

I knew it was a car but from what I can find it's not a specific car. I guess it's just an old bucket. Any old car.

I don't remember what they called Fords. I believe the Chevy was a Tin Lizzy - but I'm not sure where that came from.

Actually, Tin Lizzie was another name given to the Model T. And "fliver" was also a name attached to the Model T. They were extremely tough cars and lasted for years. They could be repaired by anyone who liked tinkering with mechanical things.

And there were thousands of jokes about them, too. Such as the one where an old man wanted to be buried with his Tin Lizzie as he had not come across a hole that his Lizzie couldn't get him out of.

From WW I through to the mid-1920's the Model T took 50% of the passenger car market in North America. Thus the nick names given to the Ford Model T, the car Henry Ford said you could get in any colour as long as it was black. And that was true from mid-1910's through to 1925.

If you want to do some reading on the Model T you will have to go back to the 1960's and earlier to read books and articles on what the Model T was and the influence it had on society around the globe. Cannot think of anything written in the past decade or two that really tells the story of the Model T. Actually, an awful lot of stuff being written about pre-1960 cars, especially on the internet, is overloaded with stories of things that never happened. Sort of like the National Inquirer - lots of excitement and scandal, but little reality.

.

[Andydodge]

The black paint thing was apparently due to it being the only quick drying paint available at the time, whilst here in Oz, as the cars were assembled at a much more leisurely rate , Model T's could be had in a few different colours

[greg g]

While usually associated with the Model T, the flivver can also be any old, cheap to buy, cantankorous, beat down car or truck. Kinda like the modern day Hoopty.

Upton Sinclair authored a book called the Flivver King about Henry Ford and the early days of factory work in Detroit.

My gradmother and her daughter, always referred to bicycles as a "Wheel". As in jump on your wheel go to the store and get me a half pound of sugar. Any body eles ever hear that applied to a bicycle? I imagine it came for the old High wheel style that might have been around when she was a young girl.

Edited October 13, 2011 by greg g

[Don Coatney]

Ford's autobiography, My Life and Work, 1922, includes this passage:

In 1909 I announced one morning, without any previous warning, that in the future we were going to build only one model, that the model was going to be "Model T," and that the chassis would be exactly the same for all cars, and I remarked:

"Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black."

In is likely that Ford was being somewhat playful in making that remark. Model Ts were, in fact, offered in a choice of colour early in the car's lifetime around 1908, and again after 1926. The statement was true when Ford's biography was published, in 1922, and when he was cutting costs by using a type of quick-drying paint that was only then available in black