This Minister Turned a Model T Into a Mobile Church, 1922

In 1922, Ford Motor Company published the story of Reverend Branford Clarke and his mobile chapel, based on a Model T chassis. Entirely self-designed, the chapel featured a small organ and a steeple that could fold down. Ford used individual stories like Reverend Clarke’s to advertise its Model T as a sturdy, versatile automobile that could change ordinary Americans’ lives.

The article reads:

There have been many and interesting uses to which Ford cars have been put, but we believe that this chapel of the Rev. Branford Clarke, New York, is in a class by itself.

Equipped with steeple 'n every-thing, Rev. Mr. Clarke is prepared to take the Scripture literally and obey the injunction to “Go ye into the highways.”

He has built a tiny “traveling chapel,” stained glass windows, and all, upon a Ford chassis. Recently he started out by trundling his church along Broadway, stopping and preaching to the crowd from his perambulatory pulpit. The chapel contains a small organ, which Mrs. Clarke playa. The steeple folds down when he wants to put the car in a garage.

This photo shows Rev. Mr. Clarke and his traveling chapel.

The Rev. Mr. Clarke became New York’s famous “poet-painter-preacher” when he illustrated his sermons in the Pillar of Fire Church, Brooklyn, with canvasses which he painted himself, occasionally varying it by giving out one of his own verses from the pulpit.