Tucker concept

[Guest Water Jacket]

Alsancle sums it well above. But believe me, i wasn't comparing Tucker with Duesenberg! Just showing how myth, legend grow out of proportion and do any number of cars, their heritage, budding historians, future owners/caretakers no justice.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Water Jacket (see edit history)

[WQ59B]

I would agree that immediately post-WWII was the last time you could have a decent chance (with a good product & business case) to make a go in the industry from scratch. Engineering in general had progressed at a slow pace thru to that period, but ramped up thru the '50s (EX: Merc had 110 HP in '50, and 400 (rated) by '58), and the multiple lines commonplace after '60 would doom most every startup in that era.

BTW- I would assess any durability issues with Tuckers due not to their engineering per say, but their pilot-production status. Many cars came back to the factory for upgrades, which were ongoing even within the short production run. I believe the cars would've been well sorted-out toward the tail of a 12-month run (had things lasted that long).

[Rusty_OToole]

So what killed these cars? My wife says they would've been the safest cars on the road, first with seatbelts and padded dash. Optional radio. Tucker luggage. The obvious moving 3rd headlight. Sounds like the bees knees.

But then Tucker was taking preorders and money in advance to produce vehicles and put the orders in production, and the SEC got a bug up its butt about the biz practices and essentially shut them down??? Modified helicopter engines?? Abridged version. wrong or right or halfway there?

This story is akin to the Pinto...1st with airbags,etc

If God said to her,Tucker or Dan?, I'd be a single man!

She also had a question. 49 produced on the assembly line to completion, plus the tin goose...where does everyone get the 52 Tuckers total?

Tucker was deliberately scuttled by political skulduggery. Senator Ferguson of Michgan, whose wife owned a large amount of Chrysler stock, decided it would be good for Detroit and his political career to destroy Tucker. Some say the auto industry was behind him but this I doubt. Tucker was never a threat to the auto industry.

37 cars (or thereabouts) were completed when the government padlocked the doors and took all their files and records, effectively shutting the plant down. A few workers snuck in and completed 14 more cars. Tucker's lease on the plant demanded he build 50 cars by a certain date or lose the plant, that is why the government was so anxious to shut him down, and why they wanted to finish that number of cars. Tom McCahill toured the plant and tested the car in May or June of 1948 and reported seeing 200 cars in various states of completion. This could have been anything from bare frames to finished cars, in fact he was photographed in front of a bare body shell and also took a picture of the end of the assembly line showing 5 cars in a row, complete except for trim.

The 50 or 51 Tuckers have been in use now for more than half a century. They have put up an impressive record of durability, some cars have completed 200,000 miles. Owners love them, some have reported they bought them as a show piece and intended to bring them out on special occasions, but once they drove one, found themselves driving it all the time because it was such a great car, easy and pleasant to drive.

They definitely stood a chance if they had been left alone. In the short run, meaning the first few years, they could have made it. But in the longer run, would have fallen by the wayside like Kaiser, Frazer, and the other independents.

One problem with the Tucker that no one could do anything about, was that it would have been the most expensive car on the market. In size and power it was comparable to Cadillac, Buick, Chrysler or Packard but would have been more expensive to build, partly because of its sophisticated design and partly because Tucker was starting from scratch.

Could they have built and sold enough of them at the price they would have had to charge, to stay in business and make a profit? This I doubt. Possibly for a few years but once the novelty wore off who knows? They would have been in the position of an American Porsche, another company who has been forced to overcharge ferociously for their products to stay in business. Porsche managed to pull it off, selling to a small loyal band sports car fanatics but I doubt Tucker could have gotten away with it.