Preston Tucker

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Preston Tucker
Preston Tucker

Preston Thomas Tucker (born September 21, 1903 in Capac , Michigan , † December 26, 1956 in Ypsilanti , Michigan) was an American car designer and manufacturer.

Early years (1903-1933)

Preston Tucker was born on a peppermint farm near Capac, Michigan. He grew up in the Lincoln Park suburb of Detroit . Tucker was raised by his mother, a teacher, after his father died of appendicitis when Preston was 2 years old. He learned to drive at the age of 11.

At the age of 16, Tucker began buying various types of cars; he repaired or refurbished them and sold them at a profit. He attended Cass Technical High School in Detroit, but dropped out. He then started as an "office boy" at Cadillac ; there he ran u. a. on roller skates to do his job more efficiently.

In 1922, contrary to his mother's wishes, he went to the Michigan Police Department. His goal was to be able to drive the fast police vehicles (cars and motorcycles). His mother advised superiors that Tucker was too young (the minimum age was 19 to serve) so he was fired.

Tucker and his wife Vera married in 1923 at the age of 20 and signed a six-month lease on a gas station near Lincoln Park. Vera worked at the gas station during the day while Preston worked on the assembly line at Ford .

After the lease expired, Tucker quit Ford and returned to the police force. During his first winter, he was banned from driving police vehicles because he had cut a hole in the dashboard with a blowtorch to use the heat from the engine to warm the vehicle interior. Tucker became a seller of all kinds of automobiles.

Racing cars, combat vehicles and aircraft (1933–1945)

Tucker regularly attended the Indy 500 car race and met Harry Miller (1875-1943) there, who won the race several times from 1922 to 1938 with engines and vehicles. In 1935 "Miller and Tucker, Inc." founded.

From 1937, in view of the warlike developments in Europe and his racing car experience, Tucker had the idea of ​​building a very fast armored personnel carrier and founded the Ypsilanti Machine and Tool Company for this purpose. In New Jersey he developed a prototype for the Netherlands with a Packard V-12 engine tuned by Miller, the "Tucker Tiger" or "Tucker Combat Car". Due to the war, the Netherlands could no longer promote this from 1940, and Tucker offered the car to the US Army. She already had vehicles, but saw possible uses for the drive concept in the "Tucker Gun Turret" in aircraft, among other things. Because of the patents for the Tucker-Turret, he later had to go to court.

With the Tucker Aviation Corporation, his first public company, Tucker raised money from 1940 for the development of the Tucker XP-57 fighter aircraft with a Miller engine. He couldn't get his way with that. He sold the company in 1942 to the shipyard entrepreneur Higgins in Louisiana, for whom he was supposed to lead the construction of gun turrets and ship engines, for example. However, Tucker went back to Michigan in 1943 with plans to build automobiles.

Tucker '48 (1948-1949)

The car named Tucker '48 , which he introduced in late 1946 in "Science Illustrated" and 1948 brought to market, was very innovative and distinguished himself mainly by some safety devices ( safety glass , safety belts , disc brakes , padded dashboard , headlights off), which had never before been installed together in an automobile and only became standard in the following decades. Because of the shape of the vehicle, it was called the Tucker Torpedo in advertising . An extensive engine development failed, and Tucker bought an aircraft engine company. The rear engine was a light but strong 5.5-liter six-cylinder four-stroke - boxer engine of light alloy and with manifold injection , which after the Second World War, the helicopter Bell 47 should drive.

Lawsuits and the Demise of the Tucker Corporation (1949–1950)

Due to a certain ineptitude in his business conduct, Preston Tucker was charged with corporate law violations and breach of trust at the instigation of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Although acquitted, he failed to keep production of his dream car and only 51 vehicles were produced, making them highly sought-after collector's items today. 47 of the vehicles are said to still exist, they are very rarely seen. You can admire many of them in the film mentioned below.

It is believed that the three big brands General Motors , Ford and Chrysler saw themselves threatened by Tucker's innovations and tried with all their might a means to get rid of the small, unpleasant competitor .

Later life and death (1950–1956)

Tucker's grave in Flat Rock, Michigan

After his plans failed, Tucker first moved to Brazil, where he tried again to build an innovative automobile. In Brazil he suffered from exhaustion and after his return to the USA he was diagnosed with lung cancer as a heavy smoker . He died in 1956 of pneumonia as a complication of his lung cancer in Ypsilanti. Tucker rests in Michigan Memorial Park in Flat Rock, Michigan.

Movie

1988 his story under the title was Tucker - The Man and His Dream ( Tucker: The Man and His Dream ) by Francis Ford Coppola filmed. Jeff Bridges played the title role . Many Tucker automobiles can be seen in the film.

literature

  • Charles T. Pearson: The Indomitable Tin Goose: A Biography of Preston Tucker . Pocket Books, 1988, ISBN 978-0-671-66046-8 , pp. 238 .

Web links

Commons : Preston Tucker  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Mark Boone: Preston Thomas Tucker. In: Ypsilanti Gleanings. Ypsilanti Historical Society, 2005, accessed December 5, 2011 .