It handles like an office desk rolling down a hill, it doesn't have a radio, heater or safety glass in any of its windows, and it's so loud you have to shout to be heard when driving. But Steve Rossi's 1924 Ford Model T Coupe is a gas.

"I use it all year round," he says. "I take it to the dump, I take it to the grocery store. It drives great in the snow, too, believe it or not.

I've journeyed from Manhattan to Rossi's Connecticut home to behold his vintage T, and we're joined by Model T expert Ralph Hermann, who has brought along his own 1915 T Roadster, an open-air job known as a "flivver." There the two rolling time capsules are parked, still ready for action after, respectively, 87 and 96 years. Almost.

As Hermann explains the fine points of the coupe, his voice is drowned by the sound of the engine as Rossi cranks it to life and the ride sits there bouncing up and down like the characters in a Max Fleischer Popeye cartoon. I poke my nose in the passenger window; it reeks of oil.

"The gas tank's under the passenger seat," Rossi says. "It gets 10 to 15 miles to the gallon and the tank holds just nine gallons, so do the math. There isn't any fuel pump, either, so if you're on a hill and you've got only a quarter tank left, you stall. You've either got to back into someone's driveway and point yourself downhill, or drive up the hill backwards."

He shuts off the engine and lets me try cranking it up. "Shove it in at 7 o'clock and hold it tight in there with your thumb, otherwise it could snap back and break your hand," he says.

The T lurches to life. Hermann gets behind the wheel, I climb into the passenger seat and we set off. By and by I see tufts of smoke in the cockpit.

"What the hell is that?" I yell.

"Exhaust!" Hermann shouts. "There's a pipe for it but the oil's got past the piston rings!"

We drive about ½ mile, turn around and now it's my turn at the wheel. I climb up and over the lip where the door meets the body of the car and attempt to familiarize myself with the whack controls. The accelerator's a stalk mounted on the steering wheel; the pedals work the gears and brakes.

Off we roll. The T's all over the road at first, but it's in better shape than the coupe and it has a cool horn, the classic"AhOO-ga!" which I deploy again and again as we "race" down the rural road.

"Not bad, eh?" Rossi says as we pull back into his driveway. "I drive the hell out of mine."

It's not clear who is driving the hell out of whom.