. tonight we fake a trip down memory lane in the model-t, the jeep and other vehicles that were once built in our own backyard. whatever happened to the auto factories that created thousand of jobs in the bay area? >> we'll have the answer. also we'll trace the history of a national organization to help drivers that began right here in the bay area. and we'll take you on a tour of yosemite national park, the old- fashioned way. plus if you are looking for a unique drive in the sierra?

consider the ubconjamboree, george watson did. all of those stories on "a second look". >> hello emp, i'm frank somerville. it's the middle of summer and for millions of americans that means to load up the kids and hit the road. tonight on "a second look" we revisit the invention that brought us so much freedom, the automobile, but we start first with the history of an organization that has long been there whenever you left the lights on and need a tow. ktvu's bob mackenzie first brought us the story of "the triple ten years ago. >> reporter: those horseless carriages were mucking up the air and scaring the horses. of course you to be rich to own an automobile, which didn't add to their popularity with everyone else. as the second decade began, the auto owned the streets in san francisco and other big up toes, but it was still the rich

who owned them. henry ford changed all of that. instead of making cars one at a time, the ford factory mass- produced them with an idea called osembly lines. each worker did the same job over and over, enabling the plant to crank out a new car every ten minutes. at last, regular folks could take to the roads, and in the roaring $20s, they did. charging up and down the streets of san francisco in an exhilarating triumphant of machinery over topography. but outside city limits there were no paved roads and no road signs. cloud of dust race raise by one automobile made visibility pretty chancey for anyone behind. nevertheless, car owners took their spins in the country, lurching in and out of ruts and bouncing on rocks and that was part of the fun. if the driver had a sufficient sense of adventure, a model-t could go place where's a mule would hesitate and where there

wasn't a road, well try a railroad track or a pipeline? all of that was fun in the summer, but in winter, those dirt roads turned to mush and automotive adventures found themselves bogged down across the landscape. while henry ford was building cars nobody was building roads. fortunately there was already an organization working to improve the lives of drivers. in 1901 a small group of well to do car owners got together in san francisco and find the automobile club of california. that group would become the california state automobile association, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to highway improvement, and the rights of automobile owners. c state route a's campaign helped to start road building between cities that slowly evolve nigh norad highway system. c state route or a members put up road signs.

at the association printed maps, whose main feature was roads. using these navigational tools and improved roads, motorists could visit all the spanish missions of california, provided that they carried enough spare tires. each new highway hoped up a new pastural vista. >> for the motorist, a spectacular seen along the spectacular 101 through majestic redwoods into california's wines. >> spectacular destination with tips on auto care and handy maps. there was the national club, the american automobile association, forever afterwards to be known as aaa. the california club issued a

permit to drive in golden gate park and sponsored school traffic patrols. csaa joined aaa in 1916 and offered road service. first a couple of tow cars and then a whole fleet, offering on the spot repair and towing service to any member who could find their way to a telephone. conway, who worked his way up to vice president of the association, today, putters happily many his workshop in novato, but at 93, he remembers the day when road travel was still relatively wild and woolly. in these days a trip to yosemite was a visit to a true wilderness, where there were no crowd, because not everybody could get there. getting there involved negotiating mountain pass where's a driver expected their car to boil over. they had need of the aaa road service. >> we had a couple of tow

camps on the roads into yosemite valley, just for the purpose of assisting cars coming up the grades. when a car overheats, the cylinders expand, and it slows up the engine, really, when they heat up, they boil offer. >> there were 35,000 members in the california club when conway started working and there are about 4 million today. still to come on "a second look", we'll look at the role of the automobile club has played in your nation's progress and whatever happened to the auto factories that provided thousands of jobs here in the bay area?

. tonight a "a second look" is take a summertime road-trip, driving down memory lane, if you will, where we're look out the window of the history of the auto and sometimes to figure out where you are going, it helps to look back at where you have been. in 2001, ktvu's bab mckenzie redowned the role the

automobiles had played in recent history of american progress. >> reporter: when the 20th century was young, automobiles were still a novelty. a parade of horseless carrages would draw an audience just about anywhere, they were just about what they sounded lying, carriages without horses. others were they resembled other carriages of the day and if one broke down, you could hook a horse to it and haul it home. by the early '20s, the automobile was king of the road, not only in the big city, but even out on the farm, where a trip into town, no longer involved hooking old bessy up to the buck board. not everyone could afford an automobile at first. triumph ones with a definite sign of success and to own one you had to be rich. it was not only a sumptuous carriage,mly appointed, but ran quietly and elegantly on steam.

in the late teens a bright young san francisco engineer decided to make not just a car, but the best car in the world. after building a few sample cars in the east, abner in 1922 opened the steam motors in remry villanova and there with 110 trained mechanics he began to make steam cars. abner's passenger owned a successful water mill company, so seed money wasn't a problem. with a steam engine heated by ker seen, it generated amazing torque, even a 6,000-pound roadster could reach speeds over 100 miles per hour. a well to do young fellow who showed up, got plent plenty of attention. the hills brother, of coffee fame had one.

two examples are in burlingame. a retire mechanical engineer, he probably knows more about them and says they are fast. >> to fife you an example, the dodge viper, that is one vicious sports car. that has 565, i think, pounds speed of torque, twisting effort on the crank shift and this one at reasonable pressure is 2200. >> reporter: he opened up the hood and let us look at the immense boiler, holding 15 gallons of water and a condenser that puts all the water back into the system, one of abner's innovation and what happened to steam automobiles? henry ford happened. he had an idea that cars could be made simple and cheap by a

system called "mass production." at his plant in dearborn, michigan, he choose the gasoline-powered car. when it produced a car every six minutes it was all over for steam automobiles. >> with a car, north californians could climb the mountains to yosemite and people could weekend in a natural paradise. getting wheels was almost like getting wings. the more cars we had, the more business we did and the more business we did, the more cars we could buy. cars and roads kept getting better, a model-t wasn't the ultimate in comfort, even on a level road. by the 1950s we had cars with comfy upholstery and freeways. a car engine in the '50s was

expected to last 50,000 miles. today we know the price, those wonderful freeways we built in the '50s are clogged and slow- move. >> our bridges built in the '50s for the tenth the number of crews are now excruciating bottleneck. there are times that the price seems high. over the years a lot of automobiles were built right here in the bay area and now with the exception of plant scheduled to open to make electric cars the auto factories here have gone silent, but some have live on in a different form and tom vacar brought us this report in march. >> old richmond plant is a refurbished historical site where ford built car as well as world war ii tank and jeeps. after closing it laid decaying

for decades. thanks in part to emeryville- based orton developers, it houses businesses. >> well, it takes great leadership and great is fine and a lot of hard work. if it's a good deal, it makes sense and you can always find the money. >> reporter: it took the orton development company only two years to convert the property to its current uses, but to get to that point, it took 52 years. these days oakland's 73rd avenue and foothill is home to theeastmont town center where the long defunct mall stood. for a half century, up until the mid-60t,gm built cars here in a long-gone factory. this area never recovered from the loss of those good jobs. gm's fremont plant operated for 22 years and closed in '88. finally the 16-year-old great

mall of the bay occupies an old plant that closed 11 years prior to the mall's opening. >> when we come back on sc, we'll take for a ride through yosemite national park the old- fashioned way and a ride over the rockie trails in the sierra.

. for years there has opinion a lot of controversy over how many cars should be allow nod yosemite national park, but there was a time when there were hardly any cars there at all and those drivers who made it to yosemite had to enduring quite a ride. >> reporter: 1900 there were only 144 miles of concrete paved roads in the whole country. so almost all of the america's automotive journeys were by necessity an adventure of the backroad variety. in california, one of the most challenging of those adventures came here to yosemite. to the valley of granite domes where mountain were carved by

the sculpting hands of giant glaciers. tests of the model-t's reborn spirit of independence. >> coming to yosemite was the same adventure. one of the great things about these cars they were easily fitch. >> reporter: these were duty days of the 20th century. most people were born and died within 50 mile of their place of birth. these times were changing quickly. by 1913, the same year car king 5s were allowed to enter yosemite valley, henry ford seldom 248,000 model-ts, almost half of all the cars sold in america. this automobile was slowly, but surely becoming part of the fabric of american life. but thats with a long time ago. what would you think about someone reaching back in time and pulling the model-t out of distant memory and putting it

into the present? david woodworth is trying to do just that. he is offer a vacation tour that includes luxury hotel, fancy food and most important, the chance to drive a model-t over the same roads as the earliest automotive adventurists. >> we used originally model-ts with no at or aboutations at all from the time they came off the assembly line and people get a feel of what it was like for brand pau to drive the backroads of america. >> reporter: origins had to learn it from scratch. >> this is a gas line, can you raise up and down. release the hand brake and step on the pedal, which is on your left side. >> reporter: and so we begin, gently enough in the parking

lot of the lodge, one of the yosemite stop officers on the t tour. the adventure lies not here, but there, on the backroads of yosemite. >> this car is 90 years old and this is original equipment. you have to keep in mind, this replaced literally the horse and buggy. so this was a big step up for folks 90 years ago. >> reporter: horses could pull a buggy at about 10 miles per hour for a couple hours and the model-t could run all day at 35 miles per hour. still the t is an automobile, a piece of machinery, fraught with intangibles. stories of old day, traveling in a t. abound, the times of tall tales that in the telling eventually evolved into history. >> one of the stories that they have is going into yosemite, because the brakes not being good, they fall a tree and tie a chain to it and

tie it to the rear-end of the car and drag it down the hill to help slow them down. >> reporter: model-ts gave way to a whole new way of measuring time and distance to yosemite, especially traveled on the the old merced river road. ? >> i had a friend who used to come up that road from fresno and i asked him how long it took and he says i will tell you how long it took, three flat tires. [ laughter ] >> reporter: whether it was the furnturn of the last century or this one, it's not the how of travelings to yosemite, but just being there is what counts. i'm george watson. when we come back on "a second look," buckle up, it's

going to be a rough ride when george washington joins the annual jeep bam jamb bore in the sierra.

. since the jeep was first introduced as a military vehicle in august of 1941, it has carried people over some of the roughest terrian in the world, sometime as bullets were flying and bombs were explodeing. for 5 years some intrepid civilian jeep owners have been carving otheir own adventure, not on the battlefield, but in the sierra. they gather for the rubi conjeep jam woree and challenge the frame from georgetown to lake tahoe. george watson joined them in 1986 for an unforget toable ride? it's a run across the sierras, starting at georgetown and winding up at lake tahoe. to say i was surprised is the understatement of my life. >> i will be right behind you. i want to see you go through. >> and laugh. >> i'm not going to laugh, but it's going to be fun to watch

someone who hasn't been through it. i always like to get behind a greenhorn and see what happens. so good luck. >> okay. [ laughter ] . this is the first hill. it can only be scaled one jeep at a time. since there are more than 200 jeeps on the trail, you can imagine the time commitment we have made here. all right, burt reynolds, eat your heart out. it took us 12 hours to go the distance, which was bad to me, but what got to me was the knowledge that once we got in, we had to get out. what have to do is not think of trail in overall distance, but think in yards and feet or even individual rocks. >> what worries me is everyone says wait until you get to the hard stuff.

. ♪ somewhere over the rainbow, way up high. there is a man that i heard of once in a lullaby. somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true ♪ >> we're seven, seven and a half hours out. i would say in the last three hours we have gone about a mile

and a half. we have three more hours to go. i don't believe it either. ♪ some day i'll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me. where troubles melt like lemon drops, way above the chimney top, that is where you'll find me ♪ somewhere over the rainbow, blue birds fly. birds fly over the rainbow, why

oh, why can't i? ♪ >> more than 8 million pounds of granite in segment 2. >> 12 miles later we make it to the party, which is already in full swing. is it worth all the effort to took to get here? they did helicopter in a piano for the celebration and that should tell you something. when the party is over, the next day, it's time for us to go home. the trip out is much shorter and faster, to be honest, i never thought i would be so happy to spot some good old- fashioned atfault. >> that is for this week's "a second look." i'm frank somerville and i'll see you next week.