yes.....pictures would be a BIG help here lacking that , i'm sure there are many Tucker automobile pictures on the internet that you can compare to
The Tucker grill is across the rear of the car. The front has grill like areas that are part of the bumper.
Bought without knowing what it was...check Guessing you don't have a Tucker...what are you going to do with it? Wouldn't a tractor grille be a better choice?
I bought an NOS, in the box, radio for a Tucker at a garage sale. It looks like a Corvette one, with the T and U and C, etc, mounted vertically in the radio push buttons. As I understand it, they made lots of accessories for them, as Dealer Options, and many were made, and then Tucker got shut down by the SEC, so there are some of them around. I gave it to my brother in law, who still has it, using it as gee whiz garage art..it says T U C K E R on the pushbuttons. Kinda cool, but I had no idea what to do with it, there are only about 50 people in the world who could possible need or want it, so I gave it away.
I doubt any surviving Tucker needs a grille, so I would use it on that custom. Customs were made from scratch built parts too, but most had new parts from a different new car. So I think it would be a good use for it, and pretty cool conversation from it at shows. JMO
Given how rare it is I sure as hell would wave it around and ask first, and not assume no one needs it. There are guys with cars in pieces yet out there.
by the looks of the holes there are no marks where it mounts.but along the edges there marks that look like scratches..maybe rough casting/chroming??so the story goes it never was mounted.(new or at least new as in 1948 new lol)
does anyone know if there were a lot of spare parts made like this.Found info that there were a lot of radios.thanks in advance
photobucket sucks. just upload the photo to this HAMB thread (use go advanced, and manage attachments)
In addition to radios and matched luggage sets, there were lots of Tucker grilles made and sold to dealerships in anticipation of cars that never were delivered, so there are quite a few NOS ones like yours floating around yet. However, they're still pretty valuable to collectors. The last one I saw on eBay sold for $600. I'm not opposed to using it in a custom, but it's pretty small and oddly shaped, not sure if it's worth forcing it into a different car when someone out there would love to have it as-is.
There's already another hot rod that was built around that original piece. Take a good look over at Rob Ida's website (http://www.robidaconcepts.com/#!1948-tucker-"lower-48"/photostackergallery4=3)for the Tucker '48 and his "Lower '48". Entirely hand-built, except for that part of the front grill. The story of the Ida's Tuckers is every bit as inspiring as the original car...
The Tucker company was a shoe string operation by the standards of Detroit car makers. They did a lot of unorthodox things to raise money and stay afloat. One was, to take advance orders for cars before they had made any. Another was to sell accessories for the cars they had not yet made. Radios, seat covers, and fitted luggage were the most common accessories. Anyone who bought some accessories got their name bumped up higher on the list for early delivery of a car. When the SEC put them out of business a lot of buyers lost their deposit and never got their car, but already had the accessories in their garage. I expect the luggage got used as luggage, and the seat covers got put on the family DeSoto or Studebaker. But the unusual radio wouldn't fit anything else. So they hung around the garage for years and years. (PS the Tucker radio is practically the same as some other car radio. People have made fake Tucker radios by painting TUCKER on the buttons of these other make radios. Sorry I don't remember the car they came out of. I just remember a story about them.)
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