Tucker Corporation

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Tucker Corporation
legal form Corporation
founding 1947
resolution 1948
Seat Chicago , USA
management Preston Tucker
Branch Automobiles

Tucker '48
Side view

Tucker Corporation was an American manufacturer of automobiles . The brand name was Tucker .

Company history

Preston Tucker founded the company in Chicago in 1947 . He started developing an automobile. The designer Alex Tremulis designed the only model within six days; Ray Dietrich was later involved in solving detailed questions. It was produced in a former aircraft engine plant in Cicero , Illinois . The big American competitors Ford , Chrysler and General Motors tried with defamatory campaigns to stop the triumphant advance because they saw dangerous competition. After Preston Thomas Tucker was charged with $ 30 million in tax evasion, the tax authorities closed the Tucker plant. In court, Preston Tucker was acquitted of the charges; however, production could not be resumed.

Quantities

Despite all the problems, between January 1947 and July 1948 a further 50 vehicles were produced in addition to the prototype. Of the total of 51 automobiles, 47 still exist today, 24 of which are in private hands and 23 in museums , exhibitions or collections. A 52nd car is not counted among the original vehicles because - although built from original parts - it was not completed until the end of the 1980s.

Of the 47 still intact Tucker '48, only three are outside the American continent: two of them in Japanese museums, the only example in Europe in private ownership in Great Britain.

vehicle

The only model was one of the most advanced passenger cars of the time and in many respects ahead of its time.

Trivia

The car and the biography of Preston Tucker form the basis for Francis Ford Coppola's film Tucker - A Man and His Dream Car from the Lucasfilm studio.

In Stephen King's book In A Small Town , the villain owns a Tucker talisman, which he claims only two were ever made.

A Tucker plays a major role in the story Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For by Frank Miller .

literature

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Short biography of Tremulis (English) ( Memento from December 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Presentation of the prototype and the other 50 Tucker '48 (English) ( Memento from February 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ The "unofficial" Tucker No. 1051 (English) ( Memento from December 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive )