Jump to content

The Legacy of Tucker and Your Opinion of Tucker


MarkV

Recommended Posts

I think the man had great ideas but lacked some business expertise. I also feel like there was a conspiracy in Detroit to keep him from succeeding. Was he totally honest? I really don't know. Did the Tucker automobile deserve to live? Definitely! Could he have benefitted from some leadership from someone like Joe Frazer? Probably. Frazer would have been better off allied with Preston Tucker than with the know-it-all Henry J. Kaiser.

Jay 1124

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't believe there was a conspiracy, unless there was some personal vendetta against Tucker himself. If people think that the big companies were simply trying to eliminate competition, then how does that explain why General Motors was giving help to Kaiser (who was Much, Much more of a threat than "lil old Preston Tucker.")

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One of Preston Tucker's worst enemies was.....Preston Tucker. Tucker was "a big idea man" whose ideas looked good on paper but the mechanics of making all those ideas far exceeded his business acumen, beginning with financing. I don't personally think he truly understood how expensive it is to make ANY car, be it the car of tomorrow or just keeping up with the established makes with a second-best product.

The business about the big three squashing Tucker because they believed that his product was so revolutionary and the public would abandon them for Tucker is somewhat sensational, sells books and movie tickets. The big three worried about EACH OTHER. They didn't set out to kill the "little five"; they wanted to best their two main competitors at the top. For decades it had been Ford vs. Chevy with Plymouth rising and falling in position, the middle priced big three brands dukeing it out for market share and the loss leaders--remember, GM lost money on Cadillac for years at a time, offset by all of those Chevies. The little five were enjoying the post-war sellers market, for many this would be their last hurrah, hampered by post-war material shortages (critical materials like steel were government controlled, based on your pre-war consumption rate) but the independents were already becoming obsolete--the big three's technological surge toward modern V-8 engines, their ability to tool new bodies with fresh styling and their superior dealer and financing network set the stage for their domination and the attrition of the small single-line producers. Into this fray comes Tucker, wishing and dreaming, selling luggage and radios to raise cash, no real factory, no real money and a car that was more ideas than achievable reality. Had GM had a leader who dreamt up the same car as the (as proposed) Tucker, and had that leader been given the freedom and money to make it happen (not likely) they too would have found the costs prohibitive.

The 50 (well, actually 52+1) Tucker cars that were built are really like drivable show cars (show bucks)--under the skin they leave a lot to be desired in terms of build quality. The cheapest Plymouth or Chevy of the same year is five times the automobile in terms of engineering and body construction. Any of the immaculate Tuckers you see at a concours show have been made into real cars by skilled restorers who adapt parts from Detroit "buckets" or fabricate like parts in an effort to finish what Preston couldn't afford to do.

There, I said it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know anything about the Tucker management except that they threw out a lot of desk top models of the car, gold plated, I might add, that my Uncle gave to my brother and me. I foolishly destroyed all of mine by using them as battering rams and other means of mass destruction.

I don't know what my brother did with his.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: mrpushbutton</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The business about the big three squashing Tucker because they believed that his product was so revolutionary and the public would abandon them for Tucker is somewhat sensational, sells books and movie tickets.There, I said it.

</div></div>

What he said.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You need to see one that hasn't been "restored" (translation: turned into a real car) They are rough. To make a proper car out of one there are body parts that are just missing if you have been around any other make of car. These pieces are either fabricated from stock or taken off of other manufacturers cars in a junkyard and welded into the Tucker body, which is a rough outer skin on a sub, sub standard inner body structure. When all of that work is done, you have a real auto body. As I stated earlier, look at a base Plymouth or Ford or Chevy model before the interior goes in, look at the floor pans and internal bracing and structural inner panels. Then look at a Tucker. The first three are a car, the Tucker is a show buck.

The argument could be made that had they gotten the money the proper engineering and building would have taken place, but it didn't. I know of a car that was "discovered" in Detroit about 15 years ago, the owner had one of the best shops in the business restore/make a car out of the original vehicle. The end result is stunning, and everything on it works as it should, doors, lids, etc. The price tag on the job was quite high (ground up CCCA senior Duesenberg high) due to the fact that you weren't really starting with a <span style="font-style: italic">CAR</span>, but making a real car out of a rough prototype.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tucker needed a transmission make his rear-engined car a reality. Ahead in dreamland was a uniquely designed and built transaxle of the most modern methods available.

The reality is that he bought about 60 surplus (we would say NOS today) Cord 810-812 transmissions from Marshall Merkes, who bought up all of the part stocks of Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg when they went under, and was the only show in town if you owned an ACD car and needed parts. The Cord engine was fitted to the Frankin engine.

Marshall even operated out of the ACD headquarters building in Auburn, now the ACD museum.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: mrpushbutton</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Marshall Merkes, who bought up all of the part stocks of Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg when they went under, and was the only show in town if you owned an ACD car and needed parts. The Cord engine was fitted to the Frankin engine.

Marshall even operated out of the ACD headquarters building in Auburn, now the ACD museum. </div></div>

I hate to take this off on a tangent, Mr. P., but the way I understand it is that...

... Aviation & Transportation Corporation (ATCO) bought the failing ACD company. Dallas Winslow is the man that bought it from ATCO (Norman DeVaux received the spare body parts and body tooling rights to the Cord, which he later dealt to Graham and Hupp to build Hollywoods and Skylarks). It wasn't until after the war that Merkes bought just the Duesenberg rights from Dallas Winslow and offered Duesenberg parts and services through his Imperial Manufacturing Company in California. It was Dallas Winslow's company that was operating out of the ACD Auburn showroom supplying Auburn and Cord parts and services, even restoring cars. Winslow owned Auburn and Cord until 1960, when he sold it to Glenn Pray.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing I noticed in reading magazine stories on Tucker over the years.

There seems to be no such thing as a Tucker with "average" miles.

They all have either under 20,000 miles or over 200,000.

The low mile ones were on display in a museum. The high mile ones belong to individual collectors.

A typical comment is that they planned on keeping it as a novelty and a show piece. But once they started driving it they couldn't stop. It drove and performed so beautifully and was so enjoyable to drive.

This also brings up the point of reliability. The 100,000 mile plus cars seem to cover hi mileages with a good record of reliability and minimum upkeep.

This suggests to me, that Tucker had a good product and with suitable development, the cars themselves were fine.

If the existing ones were rough under the skin this is understandable as they were pre production protoypes that were built for test purposes and were not intended to be sold. They varied from car to car more than a production car because they were testing different specs.

Also some of them were put together out of whatever was on hand, after the factory was shut down, in order to comply with a deadline. They had to produce 50 cars by a certain date to keep the lease on their factory.

So, would Tucker still be in business if the government hadn't railroaded them into bankruptcy?

In my opinion no. As good as the car was, they would have had to sell them for more than a Cadillac to break even. Look at the specs of the car and compare it to the Caddies, Lincolns, Packards and Chryslers of the day. Then reflect that Kaiser/Fraser had to charge as much as a Buick even though their car was more comparable to a Pontiac or Dodge, simply because they did not have the built up assets of the old established companies and their cost of doing business was higher.

The same thing would have gone for Tucker, in spades.

I believe that after the novelty wore off the Tucker could have sold on its merits but in such limited numbers as not to be economically viable.

And in a few years when the majors came out with power steering and big V8's the Tucker would have become something of a back number.

The rear engine car looked good in the 40s but turned out to be an engineering dead end. As soon as they developed satisfactory front drive mechanisms, specifically cheap reliable constant velocity joints, the rear engine car was through.

The breakthru car was the 1959 Austin Mini. During the 60s most manufacturers of rear engine cars dropped them in favor of front engine cars.

By the way I don't believe the big 3 was behind killing the Tucker. He was about as much threat to them, as a kid with a lemonade stand is a threat to McDonald's and for the same reasons.

In fact during the 40s and 50s the big 3 were under threat from the anti trust arm of the federal government. They cooperated with the independents wherever possible to keep them in business. Insiders at Tucker and Kaiser have attested to this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know much about it. With that said, I think it is a neat car. I would love to own one, but I don't think that there is ANY chance that I will ever own one. I enjoyed the movie, but it is entertainment, not a documentary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Detroit did stop Tucker, let us not forget how the steel was costing Tucker twice as much as the big 3 (why would the steel manufacturers do this to Tucker when he was going into mass production? The steel companies would have listened to the big 3, their biggest customers and raised the price on Tucker), Also, Benson, the propped up dictator of the Tucker company (in order to sell stock) was recruited from, I believe Ford or Chrysler and he wanted to change around the car to having the engine in the front and the seat belts taken out, etc. essentially trying to kill what was unique about Tucker compared to the other car companies and the main selling points. Also, they took back his factory in Chicago a few days before the deadline, now why would they do this? and the raid on the tucker factory was in the newspaper before it happened and people lied about reciepts in court to make Tucker look bad (but then he produced the reciepts) As to the point about not being able to sell the cars, after WWII every manufacturer from 1946-1948 had the same basic, boring outdated pre war designs (there are a few exceptions) with the exception of grills, etc. people were starved for an all new car and the people would have bought Tuckers, and as time went on Tucker would have advanced technology to Power Steering air conditioning, etc.Finally, the point about Tucker being as much of a threat as a lemonade stand in comparison with a mcdonalds, someone probably said the same thing about Japanese cars 40 years ago!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ahhhh.............. Packard had already introduced air conditioning in 1939, on a production basis.

There was a lot about how Tucker did business that just didn't jive. The Securities and Exchange Commission did their job.

Let's talk about steel. Steel was and is a commodity, bought on the open market at prices that fluctuate as supply and demand rises and falls. Unlike today, steel was in short supply after the war, and the distribution of it was metered (controlled) by the federal government. The allotment of new steel was predicated on the manufacturer's pre-war usage (at a time when there were no controls, but the auto industry was affected by the depression). Under those terms guess who was going to get the most steel?

I'm thinking GM first, Chrysler second (they were #2 then), Ford then probably Studebaker or Nash, the rest getting increasingly smaller pieces of the pie.

Every car manufacturer could sell every car they could make then, and many suffered loss of sales by the inability to get raw materials acting as a limiter to how many cars they could ship. There were established companies with "real" factories, complete complexes with foundry, machining, engine and transmission plants, body stamping, fabrication and paint facilities, all feeding a final assembly line and they couldn't get as much steel as they knew they needed. So into this fray comes Tucker (a single line/market segment builder at a time when the writing is already on the wall for established single line/segment producers), he has a great concept, a good working prototype, shaky financing and a doubtful wall street (ergo the manager hired over from a big three company--an effort to ease investors that someone stable is going to look after their money) and Tucker can't get steel. Everyone in industry was fighting for steel. If it wasn't cars it was refrigerators or railroad cars or agricultural equipment etc., and these were established companies with large factories employing hundreds of thousands of people.

I said it before and I’ll say it again—GM worried about Chrysler and Ford, the three mainly worried about each other, the big fish.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I read the Langworth Kaiser/Frazer book over the winter and spring and it opened my eyes about the post war auto manufacturing climate. Henry Kaiser and his ego aside, KF was always running on the razors edge, with much more resources then Tucker. So, in my opinion, there was no way Tucker could have made a go of it. It was pie in the sky.

Maybe they needed a conventional car, and an alignment with KF, that might have worked. After all, KF was dabbling in front wheel drive and other oddball stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: 1948Lincoln</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Detroit did stop Tucker, let us not forget how the steel was costing Tucker twice as much as the big 3 (why would the steel manufacturers do this to Tucker when he was going into mass production? The steel companies would have listened to the big 3, their biggest customers and raised the price on Tucker), Also, Benson, the propped up dictator of the Tucker company (in order to sell stock) was recruited from, I believe Ford or Chrysler and he wanted to change around the car to having the engine in the front and the seat belts taken out, etc. essentially trying to kill what was unique about Tucker compared to the other car companies and the main selling points. Also, they took back his factory in Chicago a few days before the deadline, now why would they do this? and the raid on the tucker factory was in the newspaper before it happened and people lied about reciepts in court to make Tucker look bad (but then he produced the reciepts) As to the point about not being able to sell the cars, after WWII every manufacturer from 1946-1948 had the same basic, boring outdated pre war designs (there are a few exceptions) with the exception of grills, etc. people were starved for an all new car and the people would have bought Tuckers, and as time went on Tucker would have advanced technology to Power Steering air conditioning, etc.Finally, the point about Tucker being as much of a threat as a lemonade stand in comparison with a mcdonalds, someone probably said the same thing about Japanese cars 40 years ago! </div></div>

The reason Tucker had to pay more for his steel was simple. He bought from small steel mills that had a higher cost of production than the big boys and were charging what the market would bear.

The big steel makers had more orders than they could fill. Quite logically, they allocated supplies to their long time customers - the people who had supported them back in the depression times when selling steel wasn't so easy.

They knew there is a boom and bust cycle in industry. They knew some day the market would be glutted with cars and they didn't want to spit in the eye of their best customers to oblige some new fly by night operator. New customers got what was left over after the orders from long time customers were satisfied.

I don't know the Benson story but I assume that like Joe Frazer he was a long time auto industry veteran and ran the company along lines he was familiar with.

The fact that he was a former Ford man does not impress me. Ford was the worst run auto company in the business. The management consisted of Henry Ford and a bunch of yes men who were allowed no initiative at all.

The situation was so bad that the US government pulled Henry Ford II out of the Navy and put him in charge of his grandfather's company. They feared that the company was so badly managed it would affect the war effort. Henry II cleared out the dead wood, brought in the "whiz kids" and saved the company.

I suspect Benson was one of those let go by Ford.

The destruction of the Tucker company was power politics, pure and simple. Senator Ferguson was behind it for reasons of his own. If the big 3 sicced him on Tucker they were crazy. Tucker was no threat to them and they knew it.

I'm sure Tucker could have sold cars in the post war seller's market. Anybody could.

But the pent up demand for cars was satisfied by 1949. After that the market went back to normal and car dealers had to compete for sales.

In a free market, I don't believe Tucker could have sold enough cars to make a profit and stay in business at the price he would have been forced to charge by simple economics.

Even though I believe he had one of the best luxury /performance cars on the market, potentially at least.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The first real push to sell import cars in the US started right after the war. The English were the first, they were selling everything they could under the government's "export or die" policy. This was the English government's effort to make the $$$$$ to pay back all the debts racked up during the war.

Other European cars followed, mainly from Germany . Sweden France and Italy did not chime in for nearly 10 years.

Detroit knew perfectly well what was happening but pooh poohed the foreign cars as novelties for sports car fans and eccentrics, having little appeal to the mass of American car buyers.

But as soon as import sales got close to 10% of the market they swung into action. Starting with the 1960 models the big 3 brought out their own import beaters in the form of the Falcon, Valiant and Corvair. These joined the Nash Rambler and Studebaker Lark, which were already on the market.

Detroit was very aware of the threat from overseas, in fact you could say the first salvo in the counter attack was the Nash Healy/Kaiser Darrin/Corvette/Thunderbird generation of sports cars. These were brought to market between 1951 and 1955, even before the compacts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...
Guest rideswithchuck

I understand that there is documentation that Tucker No57 was used in a curved rear window design experiment. Where can I see a photo of the results?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I understand that there is documentation that Tucker No57 was used in a curved rear window design experiment. Where can I see a photo of the results?
Uh-Oh.................I detect another "Lost Prototype" re-surfacing.;)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is another factor that has not been mentioned.After WW2 the big auto companies were on notice from the government that they were too big and could be broken up under the anti trust laws if there was any sign of unfair competition or deliberately driving smaller competitors out of business.

The anti trust laws and patent laws had been suspended or modified during the war to streamline and maximize production of weapons and war material. That era was over.

This helps explain the aid given to the independents, including Tucker, by the majors. According to company insiders Ford supplied Lincoln steering wheels for the prototypes at no charge. I believe Delco furnished the electrical system. There were other examples of the majors helping the independents. For example, the Studebaker V8 was inspired by the Cadillac V8 and Studebaker insiders admitted years later that they visited Cadillac headquarters and got help from Cadillac engineers.

General Motors also supplied automatic transmissions to Nash, Hudson, Lincoln, and Kaiser Frazer. There are many examples of the independents buying parts and accessories from the majors, or from suppliers controlled by the majors.

It was very important for them to be seen as supporting the independents. Besides they were not worried about the independents especially such small operators as Tucker or Kaiser Frazer. Ford and Chev worried about each other, and everybody kept an eye on General Motors.

Those who knew the auto industry best knew Tucker did not stand a chance in the long run.

The auto industry could afford to let nature take its course.

The efforts to put him out of business were purely political.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Preston Tucker put himself out of business. Under capitalized and over spending is what kills any enterprise. The movie was interesting for sure, but it was sensationalized to make a better story. Still a quintessential "American Dream" story during a time when America was in it's glory days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest rideswithchuck

It has to be mentioned here that the prosecutor in the Tucker trial was Otto Kerner who went on to accept bribe money while holding public office and spent time in a federal prison.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tell me what you think of the Tucker story and Tucker and your opinion! And your opinion of what happened to Tucker!

I'm 59 and I've been in the hobby since I was 10, never understood the "Big Deal" over Tucker. Ugly car, took on Detroit, lost, worth some money today, if I had one I couldn't sell it fast enough. ....................The movie was interesting and fun to watch.

Almost forgot the MILLER Race cars Tucker campained at INDY, I'd be happy to have one of those.

Edited by 1937hd45 (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The reason that the smaller auto companies went out of business after the stock market crash and after WW2 was because of the lack of capital. A car company is unlike many other businesses in the amount of money it takes to product. On a simple formula, if the average car has 15,000 parts and each part takes tooling that might be only $100,000.00 per part, what is the sum of the capital to build the car. (15,000 X $100,000.00= A LOT!!) Now you might say that a particular part does not take a 100G, but other parts like body dies might cost 100-250 million for a particular car. The small manufacturers just ran out of money. When you put a certain number of cars amortized over a fixed tooling cost, the tooling per car goes down and that is where you make money. Simple economics.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The reason that the smaller auto companies went out of business after the stock market crash and after WW2 was because of the lack of capital. A car company is unlike many other businesses in the amount of money it takes to product. On a simple formula, if the average car has 15,000 parts and each part takes tooling that might be only $100,000.00 per part, what is the sum of the capital to build the car. (15,000 X $100,000.00= A LOT!!) Now you might say that a particular part does not take a 100G, but other parts like body dies might cost 100-250 million for a particular car. The small manufacturers just ran out of money. When you put a certain number of cars amortized over a fixed tooling cost, the tooling per car goes down and that is where you make money. Simple economics.

That's it in a nutshell ,folks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...