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Chapter 20 One for the Road Book: The Indomitable Tin Goose Subtitle: The True Story of Preston Tucker and His Car Author: Charles T. Pearson Publisher: Abelard-Schuman Year: 1960 |
20 ONE FOR THE ROAD
LONG AGO it used to be said that love makes the world go 'round. Maybe today it's nuclear fission. But in 1948 it was money, and that was Tucker's problem when design of the automobile was far enough along to start getting first models to dealers.
A pilot assembly line had been set up and engines and body panels were being delivered, but they had to finish paying for dies and tooling, and buy materials to start production. The stock issue had fallen $5,000,000 short of its goal, and the tussles to get the stock cleared and trying for a steel plant had cost heavily in time and money.
A long-range program for outside income had already been set up with hiring of Secundo Campini, who became the newest vice president. Campini, along with Frank Whittle of England, was one of the pioneers in the new field of jet propulsion, and was credited with the first jet-powered flight from Milan to Rome in August of 1940, in a Campini-Caproni plane. (Authorities differ, some giving credit for the first flight to a German in 1939. If Campini was second, he was still ahead of the first flight made in England, using Whittle's engine.)
Campini was brought in by Enea Bossi, who had worked with Tucker in New Orleans and went to Europe to see what he could find in automobile development that Tucker could use. While in Italy he met Campini, a former acquaintance, and recommended him to Tucker.
Tucker's immediate purpose was to get work for the plant from the Air Force, which was interested in the Italian engineer from the start. Second, he wanted to start Campini on development of a gasoline turbine for future use in the automobile. Tucker met some opposition hiring Campini, but he told the board it would be a long time before they made any profits from automobiles, and even then they would need diversification.
“If you think we're going to make automobiles alone you're crazy,” he told a board meeting. “We'll make a lot of things. Any independent that isn't diversified will never make the grade, no matter how good an automobile it produces.”
Whether Campini was the genius Tucker believed him to be may have been debatable, but the Army was interested enough that it offered to fly him from Italy in a military plane, Campini said later. Campini set up his own department in the plant and started shuttling back and forth from Wright-Patterson field at Dayton, where there was every promise that the company would get a development contract from the Air Force.
But that did not solve any immediate problems, and Tucker knew it might be a long time before even the best of Campini's ideas could start paying off. It was the need for immediate money that inspired the Accessories Program, which was born of desperation and succeeded far beyond the wildest dreams.
The accessories plan was the brain child of Cliff Knoble, advertising manager, whose idea was to sell accessories to people who wanted to buy Tucker automobiles, and with the accessories give them a sequence number for getting a car as soon as one with their number came off the line. The idea was a natural for the time, when it was practically impossible to buy a car that wasn't already loaded down with accessories; the chief difference was that Tucker buyers got the accessories first. While the plan was publicized as a means of beating the black market, the big objective was money. If successful, it had possibilities of raising at least part of the needed millions in months, or even weeks. The press release announcing the program said:
“In the Tucker control plan, buyers are offered now, for immediate delivery if desired, a desirable group of advance accessories including a radio, a set of fitted and immediately usable luggage, and tailored seat covers.
“With this advance purchase, the buyer receives written assurance by his dealer that he may buy for his own use, and not re-sale, a Tucker car in the same controlled sequence as he purchased the “Group A” package, as and when Tucker cars are received for delivery by the dealer.”
A “kickoff” meeting was held May 17 at the Congress Hotel in Chicago, after which teams fanned out across the country. There was no problem of transportation because now the cars could be driven anywhere. On the Eastern swing most of the cars were driven and they made New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Columbus and other cities. The Western circuit involved longer jumps, so the Conestoga also was used, and the whirlwind tour included Minneapolis, Kansas City, Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
In Washington a bus driver spotted a Tucker at the 16th Street entrance to the Statler Hotel. He immediately stopped his bus and went over for a closer look. Most of his passengers followed. Also in Washington, Tucker took some newspapermen for a ride, and when he turned into an alley beside a bank to turn around, a man rushed out of the bank yelling:
“It's truel It's true!”
The banker had just told him there wasn't any Tucker automobile.
When they brought one of the cars back to Chicago, Tucker drove Cerf to his office on La Salle Street. There a traffic officer finally gave up, shrugged his shoulders and joined the crowd. Hundreds of people on their lunch hour surrounded the car, and from windows above came a shower of ticker tape.
Gene Haustein, who went with one of the two-man teams on the Western trip, said there had been few service problems in the field, that mileage was good, oil consumption normal and the cars performed well.
“Our only real problem was show-off drivers,” he said. “They wanted to show how the car would jump from a standing start and accelerate. We replaced one clutch plate, which wasn't bad for a demonstrator with everybody driving it. And we had to replace a few stub axles that broke when some driver gunned the engine in low gear. The engine just had too much torque for that kind of treatment, because the automatic transmissions weren't ready yet.”
The rest of the service was minor, he said, about what could be expected in any automobile.
Two stories about the Tucker grew into legends but were never established as facts. Repeatedly some person would be reported as having personal knowledge, but on being interviewed it always turned out to be his brother in California or some friend of the sheriff. But it was true, yes, sir.
The first story was that at night a car would roar past on the highway, and after it got by, a neon sign in the back window would light up, saying:
“You have just been passed by a Tucker.”
The second story was that during the accessories pitch in California one of the cars vapor-locked, and after none of the standard treatments proved effective, one of the mechanics had an inspiration. He told the man from the sales department to wait, he would be right back. When he returned he unwrapped a package and poured a fifth of Old Crow in the gas tank. Their troubles were over, and with every tank of gas from then on, in went one for the road—another fifth of Old Crow.
Fiction or fact, it was good advertising, which was an important factor in making the accessories program a success while it lasted. On April 4 a new medium was added, a national radio show, “Speak Up America,” carried Sunday afternoons over eighty-five stations of the American Broadcasting Company.
Whether Durstine sold the idea to Tucker or Tucker sold Durstine was uncertain, but Tucker seemed to be happy about it. He certainly didn't need a radio show to sell automobiles, because people had been standing in line with their tongues hanging out for more than a year. But it may have been the extra push that put over the accessories campaign. Tide, the advertising magazine, reported:
“Though he has yet to sell a single car, Preston Tucker has roused considerable public interest and only slightly less concern in and around Detroit.”
The new fifteen-minute show opened with a small group of male voices singing “Stout Hearted Men.” When someone suggested “Blue Skies” might be more appropriate, Tucker forced a laugh. He had enough problems without playing straight man to amateur comedians. Theme of the show was controversy, which seemed appropriate, and the featured performer was news commentator John B. Kennedy, who discussed currently controversial issues. “To keep the personal touch Durstine has used so effectively, the agency worked Tucker himself into the program by having him read his own commericals,” Tide commented. Another trade paper suggested that if more sponsors read their own commericals, either on or off the air, “the quality of radio commericals would probably improve.”
After Tucker's short talk, the show closed with recorded man-in-the-street interviews, the first of which were made in Pennsylvania Station in New York. The show itself was a bit on the dull side, due largely to budget limitations, and probably wouldn't have held its audience the whole thirteen weeks by itself. To overcome this a contest was added, offering various prizes including a Tucker 48 for the best fifty-word letters submitted each week on the subject under discussion.
If there were any questions about holding the audience, returns from the first broadcast answered them. More than 15,000 entries were received, said to be more than twice the response on other new contest programs. One letter ended:
“Sincerity, honesty and a desire to give rather than get should bring fruit. My best wishes go forward to send you Godspeed toward success in your work.”