History Searching for 1948 Tucker photos

My grandfather, John Chorney, had a Kaiser-Frazer dealership, West Side Motor Service, on Hodiamont, by Delmar ~1940s-50s in St. Louis, MO. He also sold Packards, Willys, Studebakers, and maybe a Hudson or two. Growing up, my mother told me he also had a Tucker franchise. My mother, Dorothy, drove "the car" to St. Louis from Chicago. She would tell me about the push-buttons, the 3rd headlight, and the matching luggage in the trunk. Most of the original 51 cars are in collections - I wonder if that car is still around, and, if so, which one it was!! I read somewhere that a St. Louis Tucker dealer gave up on selling the car after the company sank, and ended up giving it to charity (or maybe just raffled it off?), but I never heard that story growing up. I don't know if St. Louis had more than one dealer? My mom worked at the store as bookkeeper, and my uncle Harold was one of the mechanics (I wish they were still here to ask). Boy, I wish I had some pictures! Do you have any information on this car? I don't suppose there is a list of which cars went to which dealers?

 

It is most likely Tucker #1008. Westside Motor Sales was a Tucker dealer. I believe they were at 774 Hodiamont, just down from the Delmar Station. Maybe you can verify the address for me. I guy by the name of A.A. Michels was the St Louis distributor. Arthur Lindburg also was an owner.

You are correct about the Tucker being raffled off. Rudy Schroeder of Perryville MO was the lucky winner.

http://rideswithchuck.blogspot.com/...2011/12/tucker-1008-is-reunited-with-its.html

http://www.chicagovintage.com/news/11-18-2011-rudy-schroeder-tucker-reunion/

A bunch of great photos of Rudy and the car are here:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Rud...v&sa=X&ei=27GXUq-RD8_8oASKnoCwDA&ved=0CD4QsAQ

The car is currently in good hands in Chicago.

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?....9237.112266852142140&type=1&relevant_count=1

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...161063409.9237.112266852142140&type=1&theater

 

Hard to believe those guys in Wisconsin had one of the most valuable Tuckers and carved it all up. Hopefully someday someone will buy that thing and restore it back to the original big back window car.

 

I know its been a few years since this thread started but I wanted to invite everyone to visit http://www.aacamuseum.org/exhibits/upcoming/tucker-automobiles-the-cammack-collection/ and see the new Tucker exhibit coming in 2014 to the AACA Museum in Hershey, PA.

 

Has any other failed automobile recieved so much attention? Bob

 

The Edsel was a failed automobile!
The Tucker was never allowed to make it to market.The public did not decide Tuckers fate, the competition did!

 

The DeLorean debacle got a lot of attention, and there are some similarities to the Tucker saga.

FrankC

 

this has been a great story! I've have always knew of the Tucker car co but not the people and what became of the cars them self's. great read! thank you.

 

Remember that the Tucker movie and real life are very different. The movie played largely on the big three shutting down Tucker. In reality they played a very small part.

Preston Tucker was an amazing guy. I admire what he did and the car he put together. At the same time I'll be honest and say that in my opinion he was his own worst ememy. He hired some of the best minds in the automobile business. The problems came when they would disagree with him. Rather than listen and take suggestions he would ignore them and move forward. This is why so many of them left. Preston did not always play nicely in the sandbox with the other children. He felt he could just run over the SEC and other government bigwigs. He made enemies out of a lot of the people that he needed help from. This is probably the main reason the company failed. They needed a lot of cash and the list of people willing to help them get it kept growing shorter.

The car itself would have been a success. They probably needed another six months to work the bugs out. Remember each car built was a prototype and improvements were made to solve issues they discovered in the earlier cars.

 

Egos do get in the way sometimes.

 

Tucker's credibility took some hits because of over-promising. He announced his revolutionary car and a $1000 price tag, along with features like disc brakes, no-shift drive, fuel injection, etc. He certainly wasn't the only industrialist promising the impossible or unlikely. Kaiser promoted their front-drive, but couldn't make it work, so the 1946 Kaisers were boringly conventional.

FrankC

 

Thought I would use some of my on-line genealogy subscriptions to search newspaper sites. Came up with these:

 

Some more:

 

More:

 

And more:

 

And still more Stuff:

 

And even more:

 

More :

 

Even more::

 

Last for now:

 

More pics:

 

More (I hope these are all okay to post. I have about 40 more):

 

I actually have 82 more:

 

still more :

 

newspapers:

 

more newspapers:

 

articles:

 

more :