History Artist's Concept of the Tucker Talisman ???

Sure sems a lot of MYTH surrounds Preston Tucker and his abortive car of the future: the Tucker 48 . I believe that the FACTS about Tucker and the 48 (aka, "Torpedo") are MORE amazing than rumors, guesses, speculation or exaggerations.

MY POINT, though: We know Tucker managed to squeeze out about 51 REAL, working Tucker 48s, before the SEC & Sen. Ferguson put him out of business. BUT, PRESTON TUCKER AND DESIGNER ALEX TREMULIS DID HAVE DRAWING-BOARD CONCEPTS FOR THE MODEL THEY HOPED WOULD FOLLOW THE TORPEDO. It was to be called the Tucker "Talisman."

I have not seen Tremulis' drawings, but sure would be fascinated to do so!!! DOES ANYBODY IN HAMBland HAVE BOOKS ABOUT TUCKER, TREMULIS OR OTHERS IN THE COMPANY THAT MIGHT SHOW SUCH A DRAWING?

(I HAVE seen a concept for the Tucker "Carrioca," which Tucker was working on in South America when he died in 1956 . . . BUT the Talisman, NO.)

 

Wow!!! JUST THAT FAST, "52Pickup" (AKA Bart Parker) came up with this Tremulis rendering of the would-be second Tucker model, the "Talisman." CHECK OUT THE LINES !!!! AND THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN PROBABLY IN THE LATE '40S?!?!?!?

 

i like it, the back half looks like a customized early 70's riviera.

 

Truly cutting edge.

 

Thats Cool,, What year was the Concept Drawing done??

 

1OldTimer! Hell yes, I was trying to remember where I saw that back-glass treatment! RIVIERA!!!!

 

plodge55aqua, good question! At first I though late '40s. But, the cutline under the photo states Tuckr like this Tremulis concept "for a comeback car," not as an immediate follow-up model to the 48. It also alludes to Preston's death . . .

SO, THIS PARTICULAR RENDERING may have been drafted in the mid-'50s.

When I get time, I'll try & get 'hold of 52 Pickup again & SEE if he has the answer, 'kay?

 

Why do I look at the rear view of the 48 Torpedo and immediately thin AMC??? Did Dick Teague revisit this visual for something he did for AMC in the '60s or early '70s???

 

Is there any evidence to back this Carrioca concept, because to me it just looked someones internet joke photoshop email.

Edit - saw the pics on the other thread. I meant something else. Never mind!

 

Here it is guys. I just scanned this from my prized signed copy of Design and Destiny: The Making of the Tucker Automobile by Philip S. Egan (one of the Tucker designers.) Save this pic because you probably won't find it on the net:



I think this is what the original poster was looking for. This car was intended to be a 2nd line for the Tucker Corp. to be sold in the 50s, not a successor.

Interestingly, the book mentions that Egan and Tremulis were assigned to work on a compact car project which was based upon an Italian chassis. He says they did many renderings and drawingsbased upon the layout of this chassis but there are none in the book.

James

 

Ever see this one
http://www.tuckerconvertible.com/docs

Some guy in Wisc. is restoring it.

 

Its to bad these Manufacters ( if some were still around) didnt Produce these cars today from Drawings back then.. they all had a vision back then .. the drawing reminds me of the Renwal kits..

 

2Hep, I got lost. Some guy in Wisconsin is restoring WHAT?

 

JamesMcD !!! Wow. When I first saw this "Talisman" (?), my FIRST thought was: Sure looks like a Caddy 331 or an Olds Rocket 88 !!!

THIS appears to be the EARLIEST concept, since the other one we've seen today is MUCH lower-slung.

DOES ANYBODY SUPPOSE that GM managed to get a copy of this ocncept -- and early enough to affect body designs of their first OHV V-8s ???

THIS drawing is creepy -- like, almost TOO much of a coincidence to BE a coincidence !!! Whoa! Now, some people want to see a CONSPIRACY theory in EVERYTHING. BUT, that doesn't mean there are not (or WERE not) conspiracies AND inter-company espionage.

Given the start-up-capital COST of a new three-year model series -- sure!!! -- ocmpanies would sell their sister to ifnd out what the OTHER companies were thinking OR ocmmitting to. That way, they didn't get caught a step behind, ya know?

 

The earliest Talisman was in the form of an 1/8th scale clay model which was further developed into the rendering I posted above. Both were done by Philip Egan.

Basically, there were two design teams working on full scale clay model proposals for the Tucker we all came to know. One team was the Tremulis team and the other was called the Lippencott team. The Lippencott proposal is the one which became the production car. But during the last few weeks of the original design project, the Lippencott team obtained permission from Preston Tucker to convert the left side of their model into a proposal for a 50s Tucker. The 1/8th scale Talisman model was a development of this left side revision, but with 2 doors, and the rendering above was itself a development of the 1/8th scale model.

 

Holy wow, James McD !!! YOU are a fount of info, buddy! I'm familiar with that money/time-saving design technique of DIFFERENT RIGHT & LEFT sides. I saw it for the "Cudas that NEVER MADE IT to market during the Oil Embargo fiasco.

GREAT point about Tremulis/Lippincott teams, too! Like Henry Kaiser, Tucker paid a TON of $$$ to get great talent. UNLIKE Kaiser, though, Preston Tucker was smart enough to PAY ATTENTION to what they came up with!!!

Tucker himself was a great idea man. He wanted afully automatic tranny & disc brakes at a time when the technology hadn't really goe far yet. In the end, he couldn't AFFORD to put those things on the Tucker 48, anyway!

BUT, it was still a HELL of a car!!! Just pointing the WAY toward the future.

 

All my life, I have heard, "This car or THAT car was just 'ahead of its TIME.' "

Well, it's true in a lot of cases, especially the Tucker Co. In an era when MOST companies wanted to move as many cars as possible with PRE-WWII technology onboard,

Preston Tucker GENUINELY wanted to give the public a radically different car (in as many respects as could be achieved WHILE not making a car that would cost $25,000 in 1948!

 

In Philip Egan's book he talks about how there was concern about the disc brakes over-heating, so they wanted to design a wheel cover that had a bunch of fan blades built into it to blast air on to the disks (this idea has been re-visited by several companies...) He describes how they would spin one of their concept wheels and hold a cigarette up to it to see how much smoke would pass through. The conclusion reached was that car wheels don't spin fast enough to get much of a fan effect going.

 

This article tries to separate the myth from fact about Tucker.Just a different viewpoint
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/the-tucker-car-did-the-big-guys-do-it-in/

 

Jeez, James McD, THAT is a piece of precious history, right THERE! Doesn't NASCAR allow guys now to route a duct from the front end right to the discs to try & allay heat? Especially on short tracks like Martinsville & Bristol?

 

Truckedup, I liked that article, and the writer was both articulate and something of an EXPERT! Thanks for bringing it to HAMBers' attention, as THAT side of the story hAS NOT BEEN TOLD (&, it would seem, the Big Three didn't think it necessary to defend themselves, anyway).

Yes, I think Tucker was a starry-eyed dreamer, a hard-bitten car guy and NOT as good in the BUSINESS end of things. BUT, what the author does not give Tucker is that LOTS of starry-eyed dreamer who just BELIEVED in THEMSELVES and their DREAMS actually HAVE made it big!!!

Was Tucker's dream a long shot. Maybe so, but so were those of a lot of others who managed to capture the public's AND investors' support.

Tucker's hard work in piecing together his "dream car," well, I don't think anybody who's studied the details would deny that. Did he make mistakes? Yes. Did he have the sense to LISTEN to the good, experienced people in his employ? Yes. Did he use a helicoper engine and left-over, reworked Cord transmissions to build his first car(s)? Yes. Did he have the sense to ditch some over-board features he really wanted the Torpedo/48 to have (yet still be affordable)? Yes.

Ultimately, Tucker's big failure was the FAILURE to raise BIG capital, and you can't really ocmpete in the auto industry without a ton of money to draw upon, pending selling cars and paying back your investors. Tucker just couldn't get enough backers.

That Preston Tucker had to resort to using old Cord transmissions is NOT a damning fact. What it IS is evidence that he used what he had available and that FIT the car he wanted to build. Had he been ABLE to pull off building 50-or-so cars a year earlier, maybe we'd still be driving Tucker automobiles.

As for Coppola's movie, yup, it's a Hollywood-ized allegorical version of what REALLY happened, but it beats the crap out of outright myth. The SEC caused more tha ONE worthy venture to fail after WWII. A good example would be Luston (all-steel, pre-fabbed) Homes.

But SEC or not, the Tuckers that were built WORKED WELL. Te Lustron Homes that were built (and there still many in existence) WORKED.

I rest my case.

 

I met Mr Tremulis in 1979 at the LA new car show when I was showing my 78 Jaguar XJS convertible I built 4 before the factory decided to build any. It was a great honor to meet & spend an hour with the man as he went over my build with a fine tooth comb & could only find one small thing he did not like real well on my car. He said with the top up the back window could be just a little larger. I was quit honored to meet & talk with one of the great car designers in person Danny.

 

carbuilder, WOW! Now, THAT WAS an honor! And Alex liked 99-percent of your build --better yet!!!!!!!

Sounds like a time YOU will never forget, buddy!

 

I too met Alex and the first time I brought an original Tucker brochure that he autographed for me. Always a gentleman and had lots of stories to tell.
A true "auto-holic" as he would say.

 

Erik, I am envious of you guys. I don't know if Tremulis was the BEST, but with credentials at Ford, Cord, Tucker, Deusenberg and GM, he HAD to be in the TOP FIVE.

AND -- YOU say -- a GENTLEMAN, to BOOT!!!

 

Jimi- you may want to look up some old Special Interest Autos magazines from the 70's and 80's. They had some articles on Alex and other designers of the era, very informative. I wish I had all mine but were lost to a fire.

Alex showed me an illustration of a reusable rocket for space exploration that he designed in the early 50's. An early concept of the Space Shuttle except it mounted to the tip of the boosters. Cool!

 

Erik, I'm a real SUCKER for hotrod mags. I finally had to cancel subscriptions, 'cause I had more mags than I could READ & keep up with! LOL

Good stuff, but my FAVE part was ALWYS reading the letters from readers, 'cause they were guys like ME, dealing with rodding issues and projects. NOW, the H.A.M.B. is like a CONSTANT, hi-tech Letters to the Editor section!!! Whoa! 7th Heaven.

 

One of my precious possessions is a '56 issue of "HOTROD" with Wm. Bendix on the cover in his "Life of Riley" persona. He's yelling at a young guy (presumably his "SON" in the show) who's standing beside a KEEN yellow Duece five-window with a 331 Firepower Hemi hanging out there. Wow!!!

I want to make THAT my AVATAR, but I haven't figure OUT yet how to upload images. Gotta get my wife or daughter to shepherd me through that tech step! LOL. I'm a tech Neanderthal!

 

A very interesting thread ,about a very interesting [and heavily veiled ]automotive adventure; there doesn't seem to be any one 'truly verifiable account ' of what actually was the truth, the whole truth , and nothing but the truth. This will continue to be one of unsolved mysteries of the automotive industry for many years to come, as there are plenty of interests that don't want all the facts uncovered, not a conspiracy, just' protecting proprietary corporate information';know what I mean!
Waldo

 

Maybe this might be of interest:

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=387840