Last summer, a reader sent us a some photos he purchased at Dearbon-area garage sale. Among the photos in that lot were two shots of the Ford GPA, the so-called Seep, taken right outside Ford's River Rouge plant. The Library of Congress has a similar photo in its collection, and notes that all production GPAs were tested in this slip near the factory.

The GPA in the shot at left is different. The lack of ribbing on the hull gives this one away as a pre-production pilot model. According to a GPA history, river testing didn't start until February 1942. There's make no mention of when production started, but note that a host of design changes were introduced in November 1942 and that production ended in March 1943.

The date on this latter photograph appears to be September 2, 1942 and we can note that this GPA also appears to be missing its headlamps and trim vane. Could this have been the official public unveiling of the GPA? Or was it simply a roll-out for Ford executives?

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