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History Searching for 1948 Tucker photos

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by Tucker Fan 48, Nov 26, 2010.

  1. NM Sandrail
    Joined: Jul 31, 2008
    Posts: 229

    NM Sandrail
    Member Emeritus

    Hi Everyone,
    Some great interesting info on the Tuckers in this thread. I used to live in Plattsmouth, NE during 1972-1992, before I took a job transfer to New Mexico. My Boy Scout Troop 477 met for years in Mr. Wysel's old garage in Plattsmouth, after the US Army Reserve had leased it. I remember the local newspaper reporting that there were several Tuckers, stored there in Union, Nebraska at Mr. Wysel's garage there. I remember driving by and seeing at least one.. This was during or right after the movie "Tucker" was produced. I have 3 photos of Speedy Bill's Museum Tuckers posted on PBase from the Americruise 2007, held in Lincoln.. A lot of Tucker info there at that very special museum...:)

    Here are the links:
    http://www.pbase.com/nmsandrail/image/121477028
    http://www.pbase.com/nmsandrail/image/121477227
    http://www.pbase.com/nmsandrail/image/121477229
    Click on "original" under each photo for the full size that I submitted.

    Have a GREAT day everyone...duane
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2010
  2. jimi'shemi291
    Joined: Jan 21, 2009
    Posts: 9,499

    jimi'shemi291
    Member

    Well said, TFan. You have been putting a meaningful, real-world perspective, with details and informed opinion, upon the Tucker story. Importantly, as the passage below evidences, you're doing it in layman's language too. THANKS!

    QUOTE TuckFan48: "As far as the cars being different you have to remember that Tucker really did want to produce a car. Although he was fighting the SEC and others he had a huge plant and 2,000 workers trying to get ready to mass produce a car. Since there was no assembly line they had to build all of that while trying to refine the car. They were getting really close.

    "Each car built was put on the road. When it wasn't being shown it was being driven on everyday roads. Preston wanted them driven hard to expose any problems. As they were found, they'd fix them and the next car would have the improvement. As the early cars came back, the changes would be made on them if possible.

    "The company was very close to finalizing an automatic transmission with very few parts. It would have blown away every other design but they ran out of time. This is why so many cars had no transmissions at the end. I believe within a couple weeks they would have been fitted with the new units but they were never built except for a couple that tested well.

    "They also had an air cooled version of the motor ready to put into testing. Now it all goes down as what might have been. <!-- / message -->"
     
  3. FC49
    Joined: Oct 11, 2009
    Posts: 324

    FC49
    Member

    RE: The Tucker automatic trans.

    Somewhere I have a magazine article with details on the design, and it is a very simple unit, pretty much just a torque converter single speed similar to Buick and Packard. Overheating was a problem, but they just needed a good tranny cooler to solve that. Tucker's original plan was for all cars to have a gearless trans. Their first engine, a fuel-injected 589 CI boxer six was to sit crossways between the wheels, with a torque converter on each end of the crank. The max engine speed was to be 1600, and valves were worked by hydraulic pressure instead of a cam/lifter. They ran out of time and money and never got that engine sorted out, but it did run. They had to use a 24v starter to crank it. The helicopter engine was a Plan B deal, but it worked really well. Here's a pic of the engine from Tucker PR. I think the Tin Goose prototype used this one, but later got the 335 rear-engine. I know when I saw the Tin Goose at the club deal in the 1980s, it had the 335 and Cord pre-select trans in it. [​IMG]

    I'll find that tranny article soon and post it.

    Frank C.
     
  4. FC49
    Joined: Oct 11, 2009
    Posts: 324

    FC49
    Member

    Geez, you really started something with this thread! Good thing it's pre-'63 and that Preston Tucker was a hot-rodder at heart, or this could be off-topic! :)

    Anyway, looking at that pic of the big 589 engine, you can see a couple other features that didn't make it to the "production" cars. Peek inside the left rear wheel and see the disc brake. It was the Kinmont type, but no cars were built with them after this pic., but several complete sets exist. Also, look at the wheel itself. The prototype had 13" wheels, and Tucker had to have them special-made. Steel tooling was too expensive, so they made cast aluminum rims that looked siimilar to those bean-hole wheels so popular in the 70s-80s.

    Frank C.
    [​IMG]
     
  5. FC49
    Joined: Oct 11, 2009
    Posts: 324

    FC49
    Member

    All these memories are coming back..............There was a strange dude at that Tucker club convention in Michigan back in the 80s, who had some loose-leaf binders full of papers and 8x10 pics of the factory. Never got his name, and haven't seen the pics since. One that sticks out is a stack of those 13" cast aluminum wheels like the Tin Goose had. They were modern looking, and for some reason Tucker put hubcaps over them. Could this be the first American car with cast alloy wheels?

    This guy was kinda wierd, and was telling how Tucker moved to South America in the 50s and was being bankrolled by none other than Dr. Joseph Mengele, who had fled to Argentina to escape Nazi war crimes trial. I'm pretty close to 100% certain this was crap, but those pictures he had were real enough. I'm sure some other long-time Tucker club guys would remember the guy.

    Frank C.
     
  6. FC49
    Joined: Oct 11, 2009
    Posts: 324

    FC49
    Member

    I had read that they tried using the Franklin helicopter engine in its original air-cooled form, but it was too noisy, especially when the cooling fan was added. Must be they had the noise problem licked and wanted to try again.

    I think Tucker was his own worst enemy. He was a great engineer, and a great salesman, but he never should have promised a $1000 car. If he had scaled back his numbers and shot for the $2500 price in the first place, things may have been different. For starters, the Big 3 wouldn't have been so scared and may not have sicc'ed the Feds on him if he didn't push the idea that he was going to make every other car obsolete and do it at the price of a new Ford or Chevy. But, who knows?

    Frank C.
     
  7. FC49
    Joined: Oct 11, 2009
    Posts: 324

    FC49
    Member

    Do you know the whereabouts of the Tin Goose today? When I saw it in Michigan over 25 years ago, it had just been restored. There were quite a few differences between it and the other, later cars there. The rear doors of the Goose were front-hinged, but suicide style used on production. It sat way lower than the regular Tuckers, partly from the thirteen-inch wheels. I can't recall the owner's name, but he was connected with the Cleveland Browns, and had tons of Browns trinkets to give away. Nice guy, as I recall. The guy who did the actual restoring was there, too, and he had lots to say about what he went thru to get the thing done. I don't know how true this is, but he said they saved it from being cut up for scrap. Gotta find those slides!

    Frank C.
     
  8. goatboy
    Joined: May 9, 2009
    Posts: 617

    goatboy
    Member
    from kansas

    thanks for the info, sounds like that could be true, wellington is'nt very far away at all from sedan.
    thanks again
     
  9. Tucker Fan 48
    Joined: Oct 21, 2010
    Posts: 650

    Tucker Fan 48
    Member
    from Maui

    The Tin Goose is at the Swigert Museum in PA. and John Lemmo, and executive with the Cleveland Browns saved it after finding it wasting away.

    You are correct that the 335 engine was not the original plan but once they settled on it they discovered how much power it put out all while delivering over 20+MPG in 1948. Refinements were made as motor production continued and the final batch of motors had very low oil consumption with little wear on the parts.

    Tucker wanted disc brakes and they continued testing different units. They probably would not have been on the initial cars had they began production but most likely would have been added within a year or two.
     
  10. Tucker Fan 48
    Joined: Oct 21, 2010
    Posts: 650

    Tucker Fan 48
    Member
    from Maui

    Does it say inside this magazine where this photo was taken? I'd like to see if we can pin down which car it was. June of 1948 narrows it down to the first 20 or so.
     
  11. FC49
    Joined: Oct 11, 2009
    Posts: 324

    FC49
    Member

    The driver was John Watling of the Watling Mfg Co, 4650 W. Fulton St., Chicago. tel # COlumbus 2770. They built slot machines.

    Frank C.
     
  12. Tucker Fan 48
    Joined: Oct 21, 2010
    Posts: 650

    Tucker Fan 48
    Member
    from Maui

    About 8 miles straight down Cicero Ave from the Tucker Plant. Only a couple blocks from the Motorola plant where they made all the Tucker radios.
     
  13. FC49
    Joined: Oct 11, 2009
    Posts: 324

    FC49
    Member

    Yeah that's him, Jack Lemmo! Not sure what his job was at the Browns, or if he moved to Baltimore with them or what. He looked like he could have been quite a linebacker in his younger days. I still have some of that Browns stuff he handed out at the banquet.

    RE: The 335 motor. It was originally designed to run vertically-mounted, so that was another mod the Tucker guys had to make. Franklin engines had a reputation of being bullet-proof which is why so many Tuckers have racked up really high mileages without needing overhauls. They were certainly far better than the boat anchors Detroit was building at the time, especially in p/w ratio.

    I've seen photos of the Tucker disc brakes, and they looked a lot like the ones Chrysler used on the '51 Imperials. Had they been successful, I'm sure Tucker would have switched to the British style spot brakes like the '49 Jags had. Much simpler and more effective.

    Frank C.
     
  14. Tucker Fan 48
    Joined: Oct 21, 2010
    Posts: 650

    Tucker Fan 48
    Member
    from Maui

    John Lemmo was a fixture in Cleveland sports circles and was the Director of Operations for the original Cleveland Browns, (now the Baltimore Ravens). He retired in the early in the 1990s but stayed on as a consultant until the team moved to Baltimore.
     
  15. FC49
    Joined: Oct 11, 2009
    Posts: 324

    FC49
    Member

    That explains it. He must have been a friend of PTT and borrowed a car.

    What a history. Thanks for jogging my memory about all this stuff. It was one of the high-points of my gearhead experiences.

    That weekend in Michigan was extraordinary. I got to BS with people like Alex Tremulis, who signed my Automobile Quarterly (containing an article he authored) with a pen that wrote in gold-colored ink. I met Audrey Moore, who designed the interiors, and best of all, Tucker's defense lawyer, Bill Kirby. He and I sat together on the 2 hour bus ride from Ann Arbor to Kalamazoo (Gilmore museum) and shot the shit all they way. Fascinating man. On the return trip, he had me sit with him again, and we continued yakking all the way back to the hotel. He saw me taking pictures and asked me to snap one of him standing next to a maroon Tucker (I don't think it was the Goose) and send him a copy. I had the slide printed into a huge poster-size for him and he sent me a great thanks letter I still have. That's when I found out he was head of MacArthur Found. and came up with the idea for their famous Genius Grants. He said he had the picture hanging on his office wall. He told me to look him up next time I was in Chicago, but dumb ass me, I never did.

    At the banquet Sat. night, I got there a bit late, and all the tables were full, so the organizer (Sermak?) asked if I'd mind sitting at the Tucker Family table. Holy shit, I thought! What could be better? Besides having Vera and the Tucker children sign my AQs, I got to bullshit with them all evening. Tucker's daughter Marilyn, who was in that famous pic of the champagne bottle that drenched PTT's suit, sat next to me. She was still smokin' hot! They were all great people to chat with. A never-to-be-forgotten experience.

    Frank C.
     
  16. Hairy Olds
    Joined: May 6, 2008
    Posts: 31

    Hairy Olds
    Member

    This was at a north Milwaukee car dealer show back in the 80s. The car I was told was pulled out of a warehouse or parking structure in Chicago. The car had faded Dairy Rich Ice Cream on the side of it and was missing 1 wheel cover.

    [​IMG]
     
  17. Tucker Fan 48
    Joined: Oct 21, 2010
    Posts: 650

    Tucker Fan 48
    Member
    from Maui

    Great photo of Tucker #1033. Thank you so much for posting it. The gentleman that owned Dairy Rich near Gary IN. had this car for many years. Hopefully your photo will jog some memories of people on this car. I'd love hear more about this event in Milwaukee and why the Tucker was there and also would like to see some photos of what it looked like with the logos.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2010
  18. Tucker Fan 48
    Joined: Oct 21, 2010
    Posts: 650

    Tucker Fan 48
    Member
    from Maui

    Ah yes, what might have been....

    [​IMG]
     

    Attached Files:

  19. spiderdeville
    Joined: Jun 30, 2007
    Posts: 1,134

    spiderdeville
    Member
    from BOGOTA,NJ

    BOB IDA makes his own tucker car using a rear mounted cadillac engine
    his father was to be the yonkers, ny tucker dealer ..bob and rob are very talented hot rodders and do incredible work on their glass bodies

    http://www.robidaconcepts.com/home.html
     
  20. 40LUV
    Joined: Dec 30, 2003
    Posts: 1,883

    40LUV
    Member
    from Mid Jersey

    This is the only picture I can add (sorry), taken at Hershey in 2009. I was searching for another picture I took at Hershey, I think in 2003, of the Tucker which was unaccounted for for a number of years. It had been restored and the owner was a really nice guy and told me all about the car.
     

    Attached Files:

  21. Tucker Fan 48
    Joined: Oct 21, 2010
    Posts: 650

    Tucker Fan 48
    Member
    from Maui

    I'll defer to Bambi here: "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all".
     
  22. I'm pretty sure that is the guy. HF48 said he built the replicars that were a part of the movie. I figured his custom was NOT an original Tucker. That is sure one beautifully done car, without a doubt!!!

    Sad to say, "progress" wiped that out...Here is an aerial photo of that address currently, through bing.com

    http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?q=730+francisco+blvd+san+rafael+california&mkt=en-US&FORM=BYFD
     
  23. FC49
    Joined: Oct 11, 2009
    Posts: 324

    FC49
    Member

    Thanks. I seem to remember there's a Costco there. I used to work for a San Rafael company and used to go there frequently.

    Frank C.
     
  24. FC49
    Joined: Oct 11, 2009
    Posts: 324

    FC49
    Member

    That's really clever! Where's it from? Here's another what-if, more of a lead-sled version model from about 15 years ago. I bought one but never assembled it. Maybe a good winter project.

    Frank C.
    [​IMG]
     
  25. HomemadeHardtop57
    Joined: Nov 15, 2007
    Posts: 4,328

    HomemadeHardtop57
    Member

  26. Tucker Fan 48
    Joined: Oct 21, 2010
    Posts: 650

    Tucker Fan 48
    Member
    from Maui

    [​IMG]

    Thanks for posting these. This is a new (previously unknown) dealer to add to the Tucker Club's database. Great work!
     
  27. wrench409
    Joined: Oct 16, 2006
    Posts: 372

    wrench409
    Member Emeritus
    from Here

    Great thread!

    Any detail on the non survivors? What happened to them, where, when, why? Were they scrapped/crushed or saved for parts?

    Pics of course if there are any!
     
  28. Tucker Fan 48
    Joined: Oct 21, 2010
    Posts: 650

    Tucker Fan 48
    Member
    from Maui

    Basically there are 4 damaged Tuckers. #1018 slid into a tree sideways while traveling at a high speed near the intersection of Olean Rd. and Blakely in East Aurora, NY in August 1948. A wrecker tore the car in half removing it from the tree. It was returned to Bradford PA. Later the front half was sold to a young group of local hotrodders who used it in their clubhouse. They called their club The Tuckers. The rear half was sold to another local person. After a few moves he sold much of the mechanical parts to Dave Cammack in the 80s. The front clip is now in the hands of a Tucker Club member who has acquired enough parts to build a car. He is using the firewall from body #52 and will refer to the car as such.

    #1023 was in a warehouse the burned to the ground in Florida. The car was beyond repair. It was stripped of the few parts that could be used and was crushed. The remaining cube is buried under a Tucker Club members garage where he restored many of the cars.

    #1027 rolled during testing at Indy in 1948. It was parted out in 1951 with parts going to various Tuckers including one without a roof.

    #1042 was destroyed during the late 60s. The exact site is still unknown however enough parts have since been located to know that the car no longer exists.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     

    Attached Files:

  29. Just for the record...Bob and Rob Ida had nothing to do with the fiberglass Tucker shells used in the movie. The molds they made did use some body panels originally made for the movie, but their project was done several years after the movie was made.
     
  30. Hairy Olds
    Joined: May 6, 2008
    Posts: 31

    Hairy Olds
    Member

    Where is this car today?
    The show was the Wally Rank show. I did not know the owner of it but I talked to the gent that brought the car to the show. It was not a runner as the car had been just found like a month before I saw it. This pic is the only one I have and took it in the late 80s. The writing on the side of the car was pretty faded so it would not have been visible on the picture.
    <hr style="color: rgb(229, 229, 229); background-color: rgb(229, 229, 229);" size="1">
     

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