Model T Ford was left in Arizona desert decades ago. National Park is mystified by it
A mystery is begging to be solved in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Wilderness Area, involving a car parked so long in a remote desert spot that it no longer has wheels.
Model T Fords haven’t been sold since 1927, Ford says, so the vehicle may have been stuck in the Painted Desert nearly a century.
Rangers at Petrified Forest brought up the derelict car in a Feb. 14 Facebook post, with an embarrassing admission.
”Over the years staff members tried to sleuth out the truth of this relic, but to no avail,” the park said.
It sits in the northern part of the federal wilderness, south of Chinde Mesa, officials said.
Photos show the car is mostly just a rusty frame now, with anything below the running boards buried in the sand. The mystifying lack of an engine has been incorporated into some of the tales associated with the car.
“Stories include someone breaking down and someone carrying the heavy motor ... away from it to fix the vehicle,” rangers wrote. “It is also said that it might have been a bootlegger’s car.”
Possible origins of the car have been the subject of blogs and articles for years. The bootlegger theory appears to be the most popular tale, with writers noting the driver may have gone miles into the wilderness to avoid being caught with a load of moonshine.
“The question we always wonder is how did this vehicle get out here in the middle of nowhere?” Bill Parker wrote on Chinleana.blogspot.com.
“The main story is that the car actually belonged to bootleggers who were transporting alcohol illegally to the nearby Navajo Reservation. (The) ... vehicle was stuck in a small wash and mud and abandoned.”
Of course, there are ghost stories, too, including one involving a woman who took a trip to the desert in 1928 “and was never heard from again.”
“Some say you can still hear her calling for help on some dark, windless nights,” Jack Hill wrote on the park’s Facebook page.
This story was originally published February 16, 2022 at 12:34 PM with the headline "Model T Ford was left in Arizona desert decades ago. National Park is mystified by it."