Preston Tucker's Dream & the Car That Could've Changed Everything
Not everyone loves classic cars like I do, but in this case I feel that all car enthusiasts should at least be aware of the significance and story behind the 1948 Tucker. A car which ultimately failed to make it into full production, the Tucker was the brainchild of Preston Tucker and incorporated many hugely forward-thinking components in its design and driveline.
(Photos: Tim Sutton)
You may be familiar with the story of the Tucker Corporation and its enterprising leader from the 1988 movie "Tucker: The Man and His Dream." We shared a video recently about Eric Breslow and the Tucker, which was the car Preston bought at his own company's government auction to keep for himself. Passing away a few years later, Preston's car was eventually sold to a friend of the family.
Breslow (shown below) bought this car from that same family and has an impressive collection of Tucker memorabilia to go alongside it. Although the car resides in Breslow's private collection, he is generous in welcoming other enthusiasts and truly desires to share and preserve it.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, a few things about Tuckers:
Many believe that had Tucker been successful as a corporation, this car would have completely changed the coming decade. Some say his demise was some sort of a Big Three conspiracy, others that Preston simply bit off more than he could chew — the truth probably involves a little bit of both. But before the cars had the chance to speak for themselves, Preston was charged with fraud.
What stands as evidence for the name of Preston Tucker, and the Tucker Corporation he was trying to build, are thousands of patents, blueprints and other pieces of proof that he was genuinely working to build a car rather than a criminal scheme.
"Tucker was an entrepreneur," says Tucker owner Breslow, "and he definitely had to bend some rules to accomplish his goals, but at the end of the day I think he was a good, honest guy. I think he definitely had an intention to build the cars. There are thousands and thousands of patents that Tucker enthusiasts have in their collections which show he was making designs and drawings for every single part that was going to go into this car.
"If he was just trying to defraud the government or the American people of $23 million, or whatever the real number was, he wouldn't have spent the time and the money to make all these drawings and get patents. There's a lot that's been said on the negative side, but when you really dive into and look, there's so much evidence that shows he was attempting to do what he did — and there are these 47 beautiful pieces of history that are around that prove he was."
If you've seen the movie, you know that Tucker was shut down before any of the cars were truly finished. Finished or not, 51 cars were completed and rolled out of the factory. What one should remember here, is that these 51 cars, albeit complete, were not truly ready for market. They built as many as possible, making due with what they had.
There were numerous obstacles throughout the course of the company's existence to get parts for what they needed. Not only were they up against engineering obstacles, like designing a new automatic transmission — but they were also up against other companies not cooperating. For example, they had to seek out a helicopter company to procure their rear-designed engine.
The Tucker is special in many ways. Not only is it a cool, rare and unique car, but its history is also enmeshed with the story of a passionate entrepreneur who made a respectable play at doing something drastically different. The resulting cars remain extremely special and urge us, or at least me, to think, "What if?" And not only, "What if this car company succeeded?" But, "What if I pursued my own dreams as tirelessly as Preston Tucker?"
Many thanks to Eric Breslow for keeping and sharing his special collection with us — and also for letting me imagine for a moment that I had the drive of Mr. Tucker.
