Merchants Surprise Woman with Birthday Ride in Model T

Ruth Teal’s daughters did not tell her where they were taking her on her 92^nd birthday.

“We pulled into the yard … and her face lit up. She said, ‘Oh my goodness, look!’” daughter Linda Renc of said.

Teal, who lives in Palm Harbor, was surprised to see three Ford Model Ts parked inside a collector’s fence. It was the same model that her brothers taught her to drive when she was a teenager in rural Kansas.

Classic car collector Bill Saitta of Largo gave her a 20-minute ride around the neighborhood in his open-sided, canvas-topped 1923 Model T on March 31.

Although Teal had a little trouble stepping into the vehicle, Renc said, “It was terrific.” After the ride, her mother got home and immediately called her only surviving brother to tell him about it. Her older brother, 96, lives in California and actually has a Model T in his antique car collection.

Renc said she and her sister Mary O’Benar of New Port Richey began looking for antique car collectors after nixing a nephew’s offer to give Teal a ride on the back of his motorcycle.

A connection was made through Bill Coleman from the . Coleman put a call out in a and began chatting with contacts he knew from organizing a on March 24. 

“She had such a good time that day,” Renc said. "It was her best birthday in a long time.”