History Searching for 1948 Tucker photos

Holy small world batman.
My Father grew up on the corner of Joralomen(spelling) and cortlandt.

Had a Titan red '50 merc, then a blue '63 Chevy which he still has.
He remembers the Tucker from back then.

 

uggggh !

 

This Hemmings blog post shows an article from Special Interest Autos about races at Elkhart Lake in the old days, showing pictures of spectator vehicles, one of which was a Tucker. Year the photo was taken is not mentioned.

Link to blog post:
http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2010/11/07/sia-flashback-racing-in-the-streets-midwest-style/

Link to the scanned page with the Tucker:
http://blog.hemmings.com/wp-content/uploads//2010/11/SIA-RacingInTheStreets_04_1000.jpg
(click on it, it's big)






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about the only other info i can give you is that it possibly would have happened either around the carpentersville area of the chicago subberbs, or possibly the newbedford area of Mass. not sure where grandpa lived at the time. I would say this happened in the 50s, but that is just a guess. i just remember that grandpa said "it was a good car."

 

It wasn't.

 

Great to see someone get such a rare car out in the real
world and let others actually see and hear it run! This is
what makes the hobby great.



Oh and, Tank, Justin's convertible isn't officially accepted as an original Tucker by any group I know of. It's not what this thread is about. TuckerFan48 is really after EARLY, hard-to-find material about the KNOWN factory cars and their owner anecdotes, descendants with remembered anecdotes, letters, unpublished photos, dealer info, etc.

As fascinating as it is for some of us, the best that can be said for it is that it has numerous real Tucker parts in it. But factory records don't show it having been started there (that's more hearsay than hard fact). At worst, it's a nice "tribute" car, and people enjoy seeing it -- just as people like to see the Tuckers created from scratch or kits. So, as much as some of us would love to believe Preston T. had a convertible going as a side dream project, that has not been proven.

 

#1002 is in So. Cal. and the owner shows it at a local church show....It looks to have a repaint...gold metallic....most people don't have a clue what it is....I have a pic. somewhere....I'll look and post it....

 

You are correct about #1002 being repainted. It was originally Waltz Blue but has been a gold color for over forty years. The car is known to many Tucker fans as "Goldie". A fact not too many people know is the current paint on the car is a VW paint.

 

Any chance he lived in Texas?

 

Thanks for the post. This is most likely Tucker #1013. It was owned by a Milwaukee dealer for many years. Elkhart Lake is only about 50 miles away. From the other pictures it was probably around 1950. I'm sure there are a few here that can give us an exact year.

 

Some where i have a factoy photo , i picked up in a junk second hand store in St.Paul. Mrs. Tucker's car is just down the road from me.
I have seen 4 differnt ones so far.

 

If you get a chance to post it that would be great. Are you sure it was a factory photo? There were 6 Tuckers in the Minneapolis/St Paul area in late 1950.

Mrs Tucker's car was sold recently to a private collector in Los Angeles. The new owner hopes to be driving it on the road and to some car shows very soon.

 

Photos like this one of Tucker #1035 are always fun to see

 

Is Mrs. Tuckers car the one that was in Murdo, SD?

Great post, Tucker Fan

What else can you tell us about the pink and white one? Do you know its current state or what number it is?

 

Mrs. Tucker's car, #1031, was on loan to the Pioneer Auto Museum from 1992 to 2004. It had been back in Elk Point SD from 2004 until it was recently sold.

The pink and white car is Tucker #1043 and was used by Beccue's Driving Range in Bellwood IL. to promote their business. It was restored by RM Restorations and returned to its original Waltz Blue color. It is presently owned by the same private collector in Chandler AZ that bought the Futurliner Bus.

 

Thanks Tucker Fan 48 for this great thread.
I have two questions for you.
1) Do you own a Tucker ?
2) Are there Tuckers in Europe, if so were they also sold new in Europe ?

Thanks Hennie, The Netherlands

 

The answer to the first question is no. I've come close a couple times but I don't think it will happen anymore. I do have a couple of friends that own Tuckers and know several former owners.

There is a Tucker in a private collection in Europe. Also one outside of London. There is one of the replicars from the movie in Norway. There was a sales office in Europe somewhere in 1948 but no cars were ever delivered.

A Tucker was rumored to be in your area for awhile around 1953. There is even a photo (below) that is supposed to have been taken there. I've never been able to prove or disprove the story although I believe the photo might be from someplace like Boston or New Orleans. Maybe someone knows and can show us a picture of where this was taken.

 

Great Thread. If I remember correctly and it's been a few years, I believe there was one at the Swigart Museum outside of Huntingdon Pa.

 

With only 50 or so cars built, just how close was Tucker to ramping up for actual production? Did they have dies for making the major body stampings? Did an outside body company supply them with these parts? For the small number of cars assembled I can imagine that much of this work was done by hand.

If there were any old dies I'd guess that they were long ago scrapped. But who knows what might be stored, forgotten, in the back of an old warehouse.

 

Tucker Fan, when I was ten years old, Tommy Protsman let me sit it #1015 in his Stone Mountain Auto Museum. Tommy passed ten years ago or so, do you know where this car is now?

 

thecofercollection.com

There is one here. Funny enough the car is in Tucker GA.

 

I remember 10-15 years ago there was a tucker (not sure if it was an original or recreation) was on display at the harry truman library, in independance missouri. i remember staring at that car, thinking how cool it was (i was 8-10 at the time) to this day it is the only one i had seen, i didn't realize how rare they were. maybe i should take a small road trip...

 

I have a lot of slides I took at the Tucker Club national mtg in the 80s. We met in Ann Arbor, and took side trips to Greenfield Village, Ypsilanti and Kalamazoo (Gilmore Museum) I even got to ride in one. The original Tin Goose prototype had just finished being restored and was there. Quite different from the "production" models.

At the banquet I sat at the Tucker Family table and got them all to sign my Automobile Quarterlies Tucker articles. Fun weekend. I'll drag out my slides and run them thru the scanner. Haven't looked at them in ages anyway.

This should be fun. I'll be in touch.

Frank
frankcalandra49@hotmail.com

 

My guess would be Belgium or France, looking at the picture, almost positive it's not in Holland.

 

The definitive book on Tucker is "The Indomitable Tin Goose" written in (I think) 1960. I seem to recall the body dies being sold for scrap, according to history buffs.

The engines were made in Syracuse, NY, and one summer I went to seek a job at a company in the old Franklin Engine plant in Liverpool, NY, where they made them. As we walked to his office, the personnel guy pointed to a shelf to show 3 or 4 NOS Tucker engines that were never delivered. Who knows where they ended up?

FC

 

My dad did a cosmetic restoration on a Tucker engine about 5 years ago. It was mounted to a crate / pallet and had never been installed or run. He just dismantled it enough to detail it. It ended up gray with red letters and some black details. I have no idea what the engine number was. He was told they're not "that rare" as many engines were ready for production and warranty work than were ultimately installed in cars. Maybe you Tucker guys know where it ended up? This was all in north Texas, maybe the engine stayed local..?

Neat thread!

 

The original body panels were made by Hayes Body Company. The company had planned to make everything in Chicago if the car had gone into production. Everything was auctioned off in October of 1950. I have never heard of anyone having the molds for the bodies. Much of what was auctioned went to scrap dealers.

Tommy Protsman's car, #1015, is now outside of Detroit in the Stahl Collection and is being restored.

I'll guess that the Tucker at the Truman Museum might have been #1039 which is owned by the Smithsonian Museum. It is not on permanent display and gets loaned out.

There were about 100 Tucker engines made. Many owners have a "spare" motor. We've accounted for a lot of the extras. Dave Cammack has about 9 in his collection. I'm always looking for information on motors. If anyone happens to see one please ask the owner to give you the serial number so that we can track them all down.

With only 100 ever made the motors are quite rare. One was discovered a couple years ago at a garage sale. It was bought for a few hundred dollars. It was then sold for around a thousand. Now it is priced at $50,000 and I think it may have even been sold recently.

I'd be curious to know what city in Texas the motor was restored in. It could be the motor that Dick's Classic Cars has.

 

It was restored in Fort Worth.

 

The engine number in the car is 33598 and our spare might not be an original. It is stamped with a 2 where the serial number should be. It does have all the modifications done to it. Hopefully you can shed some more light on this. I think I have some old pics of the restoration of 1050 I will post later this week.

 

I got to work on the movie "Tucker: A Man And His Dream" back in the mid 80's. I got to hang out with Tommy Sparks a bit, really nice guy, and met and spent a couple days with Alex Tremulis, the designer that worked on the car. He was acting as a consultant on the film. If I recall correctly, I think I remember him saying that Tucker wanted the front fenders and headlights to steer with the wheels, but at speed they acted like rudders and caused problems, and it took some convincing, but that the steerable center headlight was actually a compromise. I spent a number of weeks working on it, loads of fun. I played one of the "Tucker Workers", the group of guys that build the prototype car, and then went on to set up the factory. I worked at a location in Sonoma, CA where they built a set for the Ypsilanti Machine and Tool Company, and there was an old Victorian on the property that they used as the Tucker Home. Then, we shot for a couple weeks at the old Ford plant on the waterfront in Richmond, CA. They converted it into the Tucker Factory with huge letters hanging outside. There were racks with fiberglass body panels hanging on them, painted silver, and the "assembly line" had several cars partially finished. And there was a drivable chassis they used for some of the shots at the tool company, I think it was powered by a Corvair engine maybe? I can't recall how many Tuckers they got together for the movie, but it was a bunch of them.
I guess Coppola's father? had purchased a Tucker, or put a deposit on one, and as such, he had a personal connection to the Tucker story. I thought it was great movie, and an interesting story, even if it was a bit "dramatized" for the sake of the story line. I just recall having a great time, hanging with the Hollywood set, and getting paid for it, too!


Eric