Tucker convertible at Hershey.

[Ricko1937]

I had heard that the 1948 Tucker convertible was being shown at the Hershey car coral. I walked part of the coral on Saturday but didn't see it. I was also told they were taking bids on it. Did anybody see or hear anything about it. I know this car was discussed on the forum before and had some controversey about its authenticity. Just curious. Also wanted to say a special hello to Terry Bond who I met for the first time at the registration tent on Saturday morning. Terry I was the one in the blue 1949 Cadillac convertible who said I know that name from the forum. Nice to meet you in person.

[Restorer32]

It was there and there is no controversy, it's a fake.

[R W Burgess]

Jeff has added something I didn't expect, although I will post this link anyway. The Buick Forum had some comments about this car. Also, see the link posted in the Buick Forum.

http://forums.aaca.org/f115/buicks-hershey-270125.html#post693556

Wayne

[West Peterson]

Ya gotta give 'em credit, though. It's not easy to turn a fastback into a good looking convertible. I haven't seen a good photo of it yet without the deck lid down, so I'll reserve my final judgment of its looks.

[West Peterson]

Jeff

If there are some who say it's real, and some who say it's fake, that would be a controversy.

[Restorer32]

Let me rephrase. In my humble opinion it is a modern creation, very well done. I have no problem with such "studies" as long as there is no intent to deceive. Sorry Wayne, I do tend to shoot from the hip sometimes.

[R W Burgess]

I have no problem with that, Jeff.

At times, I have the same affliction.

Too many times, some say.

Evidently, it's serious in my case.

Edited October 15, 2009 by R W Burgess (see edit history)

[Guest 40LUV]

Here's a picture of the front. I didn't get one from the back.

[mdsbob]

I would have thought someone would have asked by now...If it was in the car corral...What was the asking price?

[trimacar]

I agree, IMHO, I believe this to be a modern recreation, as many cars are now as prices go through the roof. Saw it at Hershey, interesting concept though. The early pictures of the car as found, which were floating around a year or so ago, showed only a few body panels and the frame. Most of what is there now is new sheet metal, and any competent metal man could have fabricated the frame, even if it was 40 years ago. Again, nothing wrong with that, it's just buyer beware as usual. I read the documentation for the car, and to me it's not convincing. A picture of Tucker by the project, or some mention of a convertible being worked on in his correspondence, would be convincing, but it's just not there. At one time (Ebay maybe?) finished asking price was 5 million.

There are numerous high dollar cars out there that are recreations or copies of original cars, with some original components. Many early cars were fully or partially rebodied. I remember walking through Hershey with a friend a few years back, looking at one big big brass car, and he commented that Harrah's craftsmen had replaced the back of the body as one of their early restorations. It's hard to tell, and getting harder as those older restorations get patina.

100 years from now, they'll all be original, as the history gets lost!

[Guest Siegfried]

Why?????????????

[old car fan]

I love real history

[trimacar]

Why what? Why do a re-creation of a car? Money. Why add a body to a chassis? Well, what are you going to do, throw the chassis away. Why spend big bucks to make a plain Mopar a "rare" Mopar? Money. There are true enthusiasts who find a chassis, fix it, add body, and say it is what it is. There are others, money rules. Buyer beware and then some.

[Steve Braverman]

I think it's neat. Preston Tucker would have liked it.

I show my eighth graders the movie, Tucker: The Man and His Dream every year. Most hate it, but some get it, and I never get tired of watching it.

[Guest 60electra225]

Did anyone happen to notice that the car being driven by one of the directors of the movie "Tucker - the man and his dream" in the extra bits on the DVD, is right hand drive ? Not a great photo as I captured it off the movie. Did this exist, or was/is it a recreation ?

[Guest Xprefix28truck]

I have folowed this car since it started a year ago. I have gone to the Tucker Convertible site. I feel like this car is always going to be one of those that "Walks the line" as to the fact or "real" or " recreation". When this car started sufacing on the web, I felt like there was some deception taking place. Now I'm not so sure. They seem to have backed off on their claim some. On their website they seem to be taking the standpoint that, they will give all the info that they have. Show you what documentation they have. And let you make your own mind up as to the truth about the car. I can tell that they truely believe in the originality of the car. But don't seem to be forcing it off on a anyone. They seem to admit what has been "rebuilt" and made from new. The one thing that I wish I could have seen was the rest of the sheet as to who owns the Tuckers. It states that this car was started from Number 48. What does it say about number 48 on that sheet? It didn't go down that far. Things like that are disappointing when it comes to showing documentation.

As to my thoughts on the thumbnail above... Since this was in the extras on the movie. It could have been shown in reverse negative. Just like you can do with pictures. I have seen it before in other movies. I am by no means an Expert on any car. So I don't know... Just my thought.

[Terry Bond]

Hey Ricko-it was a pleasure to meet you and enjoy looking over the car. Those early morning dash plaque hand-outs are the most fun anyone can have. I've enjoyed it tremedously. At Hershey this year we had a couple of younger members from Hershey Region helping out and boy did they get a thrill meeting everyone. As I handed out awards Saturday evening, one person said "man, when I saw all those smiles coming into the show-field, I knew it was gonna be a great day!"

Separate subject - did you hear about the British Tucker? Allegedly, one was made for export-parts where shipped secretly over to England and the car was finished there with steering on the right (wrong?) side and Lucas electrical systems. They were going to explore the possibility of producing some for the British market. I was going to save this story for early April release but now seems the time since we're talking about cars that might have been.

Terry

[Guest DeSoto Frank]

Did anyone happen to notice that the car being driven by one of the directors of the movie "Tucker - the man and his dream" in the extra bits on the DVD, is right hand drive ? Not a great photo as I captured it off the movie. Did this exist, or was/is it a recreation ?

I would suspect the negative was reversed during editing. The movie was made in the days before digital editing, and it was common to reverse the image.

Heck, I often see "flipped" negs in still photos to this very day, in very nice, glossy color car mags...

That said, it would be easier to convert a Tucker to RHD than a conventional front-engined car of the same period...

:cool:

De Soto Frank

[Guest DeSoto Frank]

I have folowed this car since it started a year ago. I have gone to the Tucker Convertible site. I feel like this car is always going to be one of those that "Walks the line" as to the fact or "real" or " recreation". When this car started sufacing on the web, I felt like there was some deception taking place. Now I'm not so sure. They seem to have backed off on their claim some. On their website they seem to be taking the standpoint that, they will give all the info that they have. Show you what documentation they have. And let you make your own mind up as to the truth about the car. I can tell that they truely believe in the originality of the car. But don't seem to be forcing it off on a anyone. They seem to admit what has been "rebuilt" and made from new. The one thing that I wish I could have seen was the rest of the sheet as to who owns the Tuckers. It states that this car was started from Number 48. What does it say about number 48 on that sheet? It didn't go down that far. Things like that are disappointing when it comes to showing documentation.

As to my thoughts on the thumbnail above... Since this was in the extras on the movie. It could have been shown in reverse negative. Just like you can do with pictures. I have seen it before in other movies. I am by no means an Expert on any car. So I don't know... Just my thought.

Seems the alteration on this particular car started many, many years ago... looks like the present owners are fairly forth-coming about its history...

I'd give it the benefit of the doubt, but then, I'm not seriously considering purchasing it.

[Talarico8447]

My vote is, it's a fake. From what i know a convertible was not in the works.

[Guest 60electra225]

Just had another look at the DVD. The film is definitely not reversed. You can read the licence plate - looks like 85 5 03. Not a conventional licence plate, but not reversed that's for sure.

[Talarico8447]

I'd like to add that I think this is the one and only time that the term "tribute car" should be used. And as a whole, the car community should not be insulted as to be expected to belive it was an actual car. Why cant we enjoy it as original Tucker parts made to look like a convertible.

[Guest BJM]

I would have thought someone would have asked by now...If it was in the car corral...What was the asking price?

This no different then when you see an old car dealer list prices for some cars then on really special cars, it says "Call for Price".

A selling price has not been established yet. $5 million ? If someone offered $5 million "they" (whoever "they" are) would smile and not answer - is my prediction.

$10 millions, how about $13 million ?

IMHO, I am not sure this vehicle should have been allowed to by shown at your AACA meet. Just my opinion, but the allowance of this vehicle helps "feed the frenzy" of speculation - in fact it was free publicity - look how much we are discussing it.

Is that really even a Tucker body? After all, they can create a classic car rebody these days. You could even recast the motors if the money is right.

It's been "for sale" for well over a year now. I wish it would just go away so we could get back to discussing old cars and not one offs meant to make money.

[Guest Model T Nick]

Just to stir the pot. What about the (8th?) Bugatti Royale Wasn't it made from a railroad engine?

[R W Burgess]

IMHO, I am not sure this vehicle should have been allowed to by shown at your AACA meet. Just my opinion, but the allowance of this vehicle helps "feed the frenzy" of speculation - in fact it was free publicity - look how much we are discussing it......

Absolutely, it's free publicity, for the AACA Web Site. And it wasn't even a conversation about MUD!??????:eek:

Wayne

[C4GY]

What's next, a cadillac lasalle dump truck? Maybe a '64 4x4 Mustang station wagon. You know anything can be put together. Now as to Hershey Mud let me check, I am sure I still have some somewhere seeing as it was EVERYWHERE.

Yes I think "tribute car" is best I would every give it

[CarlLaFong]

What's next, a cadillac lasalle dump truck? Maybe a '64 4x4 Mustang station wagon. You know anything can be put together. Now as to Hershey Mud let me check, I am sure I still have some somewhere seeing as it was EVERYWHERE.

Yes I think "tribute car" is best I would every give it

Pretty hard to do since there is no such thing as a Cadillac LaSalle

[C4GY]

That's what I mean

[Jim Rohn]

[Guest Paul Christ]

I would have thought someone would have asked by now...If it was in the car corral...What was the asking price?

I saw the Tucker on Thursday, and the gentleman who was showing the car said that the best offer that had been made was $1.75 million plus a property in Myrtle Beach valued at $200,000. He went on to say that they were looking for a selling price closer to $2.5 million.

More information on the Tucker convertible, and photos, can be found by clicking here; The Official Site of the Tucker Convertible!

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[Restorer32]

If someone truly offers the owner of this car 1.75 million he had better kiss him on the lips, take the cash and run. Does anyone else find it interesting that this car has NOT been offered at any major auction ?

[Guest BJM]

If someone truly offers the owner of this car 1.75 million he had better kiss him on the lips, take the cash and run. Does anyone else find it interesting that this car has NOT been offered at any major auction ?

No different then dropping fish blood in the ocean to attract the sharks. That's what Hershey was this year - and the ebay "ads". Then finally you will see it at an auction. In fact I would be willing to bet that the auctions are lining up with "appearance fees" for the Tucker to be sold at "no reserve" at their signature event.

[DaveBerg]

I did not see the car at Hershey though I wish I would have. Years ago when RM sold some of the Richard Kughn, former Lionel Trains owner, collection. A Tucker car was offered along with a myriad of parts that included a couple of motors and virtually everything else to finish the car that was offered. I believe but could be wrong, that a minimal portion of this car was #17 which had previously been destroyed on the test track. Basically this partially rebuilt car was at best in parts car condition but did make a great display. I had actually bid on it for a little while but was not the eventual buyer. Along with this car came professionally detailed plans to build a convertible out of it. I have no idea whether the car mentioned in this thread is that car or not or whether it used those plans or not. It just seems a reasonable possibility. Tucker Corporation did not build a convertible car. If such a car were built it was surely not recorded on any of the company documents. They may have considered such a model and probably did for future production had they remained viable.

[West Peterson]

#17 has been "restored" and I think resides in Michigan. The convertible was made from the pieces scheduled to be car #57.

[Ron Green]

From speaking with an older friend of mine (mid 80's) who was there at Hershey on Friday and who has been buying and selling old cars for decades, he recalls seeing this car from the early 60's. He too stated it was in pieces including a convertible top frame and slated to be #57. He also brought up a good point: the doors are 9" longer than the other Tuckers and are of a single stamping which appears to be true.

Don't know if its real or simply cobbled out of a few prototype leftover parts. Hard to believe it could be real.

[mrpushbutton]

I did not see the car at Hershey though I wish I would have. Years ago when RM sold some of the Richard Kughn, former Lionel Trains owner, collection. A Tucker car was offered along with a myriad of parts that included a couple of motors and virtually everything else to finish the car that was offered. I believe but could be wrong, that a minimal portion of this car was #17 which had previously been destroyed on the test track. Basically this partially rebuilt car was at best in parts car condition but did make a great display. I had actually bid on it for a little while but was not the eventual buyer. Along with this car came professionally detailed plans to build a convertible out of it. I have no idea whether the car mentioned in this thread is that car or not or whether it used those plans or not. It just seems a reasonable possibility. Tucker Corporation did not build a convertible car. If such a car were built it was surely not recorded on any of the company documents. They may have considered such a model and probably did for future production had they remained viable.

Dave, I worked for Dick at that time, and helped RM assemble, sort and move the parts of car #17 that we had in storage. That car had been at the Michigan state fairgrounds, and had been wrecked. What Dick had for plans was a line drawing that was photocopied out of an old issue of SIA, it was blown up in size at a Kinko's, that's all. He had planned on making the Tucker convertible sine the early 90s when I started working for him. At that time I suggested that we engage Strother Mac Minn (who was a close personal friend of mine) or Dave Holls to "blueprint" the job and to make important dimensional decisions that are always made when a sedan or coupe was made into a convertible by "the factory". That never really happened, those great men went to the styling studio in the sky and the project sat in pieces in the paint booth of the Fort St. warehouse. When the decision was made to include the car in the fall 2002 Novi auction that idea was officially put to rest and another party took on the project of making a car out of the dismembered body parts.

[cobalt1959]

   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. 

Edited February 28, 2016 by cobalt1959 (see edit history)

[padgett]

Happy now ?

 

[Bleach]

I found a website about it: http://tuckerconvertible.com/story.php

[8E45E]

   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. 

 

   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.

 

  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. 

Does the chunk of glass itself for the 'big back window' car still exist?

 

Craig