cobalt1959

Obviously based on the later Mercer. The original 1909 Roebling-Planche, had no headlights, cowl-mounted searchlight, or monocle glass screen.

That is not a Super Beetle. It is a Standard. Volkswagen stopped importing the Super Beetle to North America after the 1975 model year, except for the Cabriolets, which kept coming to the U.S. thru 1979. 1979 was also the last year for the Standard Beetle in North America. The rust repairs on that car will be significant. Floor pans, heater channels, the area around the battery box, fender well areas, and, of course, the dreaded Foam of Death behind the crescent vents are all areas that will, more than likely, need a large amount of attention.

Reviving this thread because I think there are a great many misconceptions about this car and a great many of them were put paid when Life magazine released pictures in 2010 that they took at the Tucker plant just before everything there was auctioned off in 1950. There are only 4 "lost" cars out of the original 50 pilot cars. #1018, 1023, 1027 and 1042. #1018 was wrapped around a tree in New York State in 1949 and broke in half when it was pulled away from the tree by the tow truck. Both halves of the chassis still exist, as well as the engine but not all in the same place. There were body parts from 1018 in the Kughn lot. The nose, and it looks like the back fenders were from 1018. 1023 was purchased by Richard Jones, one of the members of the Tucker Club after it was in a warehouse fire in Florida. The car was all kinds of messed up and he pulled some trim items and other bits of it, crushed it and buried it under the foundation of a garage he was building. No body parts of it floating around. 1027 was the roll-over Indy car. It was sold at the 1950 auction and it is pretty obvious that most of the Kughn collection car, body-wise is 1027 although it sits on 1052, one of the "test" chassis because the cowl has "52" stamped on it. 1052 test chassis was the one that spent lots of time at Stan Gilliland's in Kansas. 1042 disappeared without a trace in the 60's after a motorcycle officer found it stripped and abandoned near the banks of the Mississippi River near Memphis in 1960. He got in a bad accident and his wife gave the car away to someone while he was in the hospital. The transmission was discovered later and the frame showed up in the 90's in Minnesota but none of the body parts have ever been found as far as anyone knows. The back story all along on the Tucker convertible was that it was a "secret project" commissioned by Preston Tucker in the last waning days of the company. Alex Tremulis, who was there at the time said, not so much. It was supposed to be at a place called Lenke's being finished, but since they say it is car number 1057 the Life magazine pics blow that theory out of the water because 1057 was pulled from the body line and was sitting in another area of the plant when those pictures were taken and Tremulis was using it as a prototype for the big rear window car. Most, if not all of the incomplete bodies were bought at the auction by a man named Ezra Schlipf. Those were bodies 1052 thru 1058. 1052, 1054 and 1055 eventually end up at Gilliland's, or, what was left of them. Schlipf let them set outside and since they were never painted, the Illinois climate rusted them quickly. 1057 eventually ended up with Nick Jenin in Michigan. 1053, 1056, and 1058 were eventually buried at Schlipfs because they were ate up with rust. Jenin wanted to use the 1057 chassis/body as a display feature to augment his traveling Tucker show. He owned 10 Tuckers at one time. They cut the roof off of 1057 and found that the chassis had a lot of flex afterwards so they re-enforced it. Behold, a Tucker body with no roof. 1057 sat at some storage area at the Michigan State Fairgrounds until it was sold in the '70's along with all the other stuff Jenin had. Al Reinert, the person who Justin Cole of Benchmark bought the Tucker parts lot from has said numerous times that what he originally started with was a frame with a cowl tack-welded to it, two doors and two rear quarters. The doors almost have to be from 1018. From pictures of the 1949 accident, the front doors of 1018 were not damaged and they would be easy to extend. The rear quarters would have had to come from either 1027 or 1042. No other options. Looking at Benchmark's website as they "restored" the convertible, just about all of the back third of the car was scratch built. The worst part of this whole scenario is that if the base Cole used to build this car really is the original 1057 body, he made a huge mistake. Because this is the Tremulis Big Window prototype and would have been much more valuable, as well as having provable provenance than some dreamed up convertible prototype.

My email address is : eddiecremer4@gmail.com. If you have T-head engine drawings and/or chassis drawings, I would love to have them. I would really like to model the Raceabout in Sketchup, but without drawings, it isn't very easy.

I know this is a long shot but I didn't figure it would hurt to ask. I have lurked here for years and read lots of threads, but don't contribute because I do not have a classic car and probably never will, but I love them just the same. I am working on a project and I would really like to have an accurate drawing of a Mercer Raceabout in front, rear, side and top views, and engine drawings that could be scaled. I had a drawing of the engine in an old Automobile Quarterly, but I lost it somehow. If anyone has some drawings they could scan and post, I would appreciate it.

You might want to try and contact a representative of either GMP or Lane. They seem to have a willingness to produce models in small batchs. But it will not be cheap. I doubt Maisto would do it, and they, like Franklin Mint do not take suggestions. Autoart, ERTL, and Hot Wheels more than likely would not tackle it either, since they would not be able to sell enough to make it profitable. The only other company that springs to mind would be MotorMax. . . You could ask someone at www.diecastxchange.com If they can't find out, nobody can!