History Searching for 1948 Tucker photos

The NASCAR Tucker was Grey. You'll notice there is a pinstripe that runs outlines much of the car. You'll have to guess at the color of it as all the photos are black and white. It is much lighter than the grey so I'd guess a white. I'm sure somewhere on the car it must mention Joe Nagel Auto Sales. You probably already realize the drivers and passenger sides are painted differently. I'm sure everyone will love to see it when its done.

 

Thanks! Does TACA or anyone have color chips for the factory hues? I know I could fake it, but if I can get close to accurate it'd be much more fun to build this model. The graphics I can make Ok with decals, and I'm going to make educated guesses on the period mods mae to stock cars back then. Such as, they would have removed the muffler and run a straight pipe, ash-canned the air filter with maybe a stack on the carb, and popped off the wheel covers. Oh, and gut the interior leaving just the front seat.

This is going to be fun.

Frank C.

 

Hey, WTF? I just noticed the #12 car has its wheel covers on. I didn't think they ran stock cars, even back then, that way. Pics I've seen of other late-40s beach and track machines showed them with bare rims. The car also looks like it sits lower than stock. Maybe it was the strain of racing on the torsilastic biscuits making them weak?

Anybody know?

FC

 

The Tucker ran just the way you see it. Hubcaps and all. The Tucker sat much lower than most cars of the day so I don't think it was anything else. I doubt there were any other mods such as mufflers, seats, carbs. It seems like #12 ran stock just like you see it. They did cover the headlights and bumpers with tape as you'll see in some photos.

Your best bet on the paint is to match it up with one of the grey Tuckers that has been restored.

 

Spent some time with my father the last couple of days and got a little more information. He was 4 at the time so most of this info is second hand. They lived in Sonoma California but the dealership was going to be for the Santa Rosa area. Mark Moore, and his brother Amos Moore (no Don Moore in the family, but my fathers name is Ron Moore) invested a big chunk of money into the dealership. My father said it took years and years for his family to pay back the debt they owed for the dealership. We believe that Mark Moore had that vehicle for 2 weeks and drove it around getting orders for the cars. Don't have a date yet but we will be calling Grandma Moore (age 95) in the next couple of days and see what she recalls. Her short term memory is going but the long term memory is really sharp.

 

The only information I have is that there was to be a dealer in Santa Rosa, CA. named Schofield Motors. They were located at 461 Sebastopol Ave. In Santa Rosa. I have nothing else on them. Sounds like your family was like many that the Bankruptcy Court forced to pay for their dealerships even though the same court liquidated the company. Many dealers had signed installment plans to buy their dealerships. Most put some money down as an initial payment and planned to payoff the rest with profits from the sale of the cars. I understand the courts chased after money well into the 1960s to make people pay for dealerships.

There were a couple of cars near the San Francisco area during 1948 so I would suspect the car in your photo was one of them. Let me know if you get an idea on the location of the photo and roughly when it was taken during 1948. I can then try to pin down the car number.

You might see if Grandma Moore can remember what color the Tucker was. See if the name Schofield Motors rings a bell with her.


Here is a picture of what the building at 461 Sebastopol Ave. looks like today.

 

Hubcaps and all, eh? That'll make my model project easier. I live near Rochester, NY, and I bet there are some photographs in various shoeboxes around here of the 12 Car's appearance at the Monroe County Fairground dirt track. I'll be doing some digging.

Today's job will be to dismantle the Tucker model and slop paint stripper on the body to remove the Waltz Blue.

Frank C.

 

It's hard to read, but does the caption on the newspaper pic say the driver's name was NEROLA? I asked a friend who grew up in Pittsburgh and was there at that time if he knows anything. He's a history and photography buff, so who knows?

Frank C.

 

Did a little more digging this morning.

 

Found this little piece in the Feb 9, 1948 Fredricksberg VA Freelance star paper.
Has this story been documented?

 

Don't know if this will add any more to the list of known dealers but here it goes.

From the Aug 11, 1948 Spokesman review paper of Spokane Washington.

This is all one ad showing they had one in town and at the bottom lists dealers in the Northwest. The last shot is a close up of the dealership listing. Maybe people that are local to these locations can track down more information?

 

Doesn't the tucker club have a online directory of known dealerships?

here is one I started many years ago for Desoto dealerships that has since been taken over by the National Desoto club where they have the most current list.

http://www.roadkillontheweb.com/dedealer.html

There are other clubs that have links to pictures form many of the known dealerships

 

Preston Tucker died 54 years ago today.

 

Not sure if there is any truth to it. The Tucker Corporation did own a 1941 Cadillac Serial #9340392. They also had a Chrysler, a Packard, a Frazier, and several 1942 Plymouths.

 

Not at this time but they are working on one. Since the Tucker Corporation had an unusual end to it, much of the records ended up scattered in different court files. It has taken many years to track them down and reassemble them. The Tucker Club is working to make this information available.

 

The article does say Nerola but it is wrong. His name is Joe Merola. Joe was from Wilkensburg. http://www.racing-reference.info/driver/Joe_Merola
I will say you should not believe everything you read about this particular Tucker as there is a lot of bad information out there.

 

I think there are a lot of Tucker photos out there, not only of old #12, but of many of the other cars. There has to be lots of photos of the traveling display that Nick Jenin toured the country with. There were thousands of people that waited in lines to see them when they came out in 1948. Someone must have snapped a picture. Some of the cars were in Museums in the 50s & 60s. There has to be photos just waiting to be seen. After the mid 70s most cars are fairly well documented as they were becoming collectable and the Tucker Club formed in 1973 and also started tracking the cars. It would be great to shake out some more of those shoeboxes and see what we might find.

 

If Preston Tucker was alive today he'd be 107 years old....and really tired of answering all these questions about his car

 

Try putting an ad in the local Craigslist looking for information and images from old gearheads in the area that car was from. Or where tracks that the car was raced was located. Ask the younger gearheads that are more computer savvy to question the old timers. I have used this method to track information on Junior cars! Have you tried an ad in Oklahoma City Craigslist looking for information on the mystery car from OK?

 

A second Tucker article over on Jalopnik, dated 26 December 2010...

http://jalopnik.com/5717860/preston-tucker-died-54-years-ago-today

I'd heard of an Oklahoma Tucker a long time ago, perhaps 1983 or so, that was supposedly in the Shawnee area, East of Oklahoma City. Asked some folks about it then, and got a variety of answers, from "no" to "Oh, yeah, that was over at____until a few years ago!", so your guess is as good as mine there. It would make a really cool find, to be sure. But, from the sounds of things I've read here, all of the cars are accounted for, in one way or another. Is there truly a "missing" Tucker?

TF48, yeah, I can just imagine!

 

Found another ad from Waukesha WI.

I wonder how many cars they had touring at this point, or if you could track the progress across the country by these showing dates.

 

Another thing that works well is starting a thread on The HAMB..........oh wait

 

Lots of knowledge around here. I myself love to do the research and I hope some of the stuff I track down helps put a piece in the puzzle. I think you are on the same track as me? the story behind the cars is just as important as the cars themselves.

 

At that point in time there were 25 cars on the road at various distributorships and dealers.

The next seven Tuckers completed were tested at the Indianapolis Speedway between September 16<SUP>th</SUP> and October 5<SUP>th</SUP>, 1948. The cars tested were #1026, #1027, #1028, #1029, #1030, #1031, and #1032. They were driven a total of 13,134 miles. #1027 crashed and rolled three times. After replacing a tire, #1027 was driven off the track.<O</O

 

a nice little plug in the April 23, 1948 Waukesha WI daily freeman newspaper

Had to cut it into pieces to read it.

 

I doubt that. Tucker a salesman at heart, and would undoubtedly be speaking at TACA conventions, even at 107. He came tantalizingly close to succeeding as an automobile manufacturer, and if not for what most historians think was political skulduggery instigated by the established Detroit car makers, would have been popping Torpedoes out of that Chicago plant like PEZ candies. He did succeed in overcoming many obstacles, some intended to hurt him and some just bad luck, but once The Man drew a bead on his ass, he was done. Yes, he was acquitted on all counts, but the feds made sure he was ruined in the process.

The postwar period was when GM spearheaded the conspiracy with tire companies and gasoline sellers to buy up streetcar and other light rail in US cities just so they could shut them down and replace them with GM built buses, so who would think they would hesitate taking a contract out on the Tucker Corp.?

In the end, just like Tessio said when they were taking him "for a ride" , "Tell Mike [Corleone] it was nothing personal. It was just business."

Frank C.

 

That's a bitchin' idea! I'm going to do just that! Thanks!

Frank C.

 

As far as I know the only Oklahoma Tucker is the one I'm searching for that was in Tulsa County in 1950. I doubt it was there much past 1951 if it made it that long. It may have been there less than a year.

Tucker #1045 was in Tulsa in 1989 for the 2nd Bennett Annual Auto Auction.

You'll get different answers as to if all Tuckers are accounted for depending on who you ask. For the most part all the cars have been accounted for. There are parts from some that the whereabouts are unknown. Tucker #1042 is probably the car that is said to be lost by some. There are enough surviving parts from the car to know that it is no longer intact and won't be showing up in someone's barn soon.

Body #1057 was missing for several years beginning in the mid 50s. Alex Tremulis, the Chief Tucker designer had modified this body with changes to be made in the 1949 model year. The car was seen by several people after the plant closed up until about 1955 when it was sold. It reimerged in 1966 in Michigan and later it showed up in the 80s with a Wisconsin collector. This body, if it were still intact, would be the only 1949 Tucker in existance and would be worth millions today. Unfortunately it has been chopped up and made into a tribute car.

Tucker #1010 has been advertised as a barn find. I'm not sure that is a good description. There was a newspaper article about the car identifying it's new owner published less than two months after he bought it in 1956. There are several letters from the early 60s between future Tucker Club members and the owner of the car. He was identified as the owner of the car on every Tucker owners list going back to the mid 60s. The owner was a past President of the Tucker Club and the Tucker Club website had a picture of the car in his garage for at least the last 5 years if not longer. While the car was not seen by many it was always known to be in the garage behind his house. I guess I compare this being called a barn find to opening the door of a McDonalds Restaurant and saying "geez, I didn't know they'd be selling burgers here".

There are a few cars that are rarely seen in public but overall they are all accounted for.

 

I was at the newsstand today for a bit, and was thumbing through a magazine called "Motor Trend Classic" and saw this...