A Tesla Cybertruck.

New Perspective on Tucker

November 21, 2019 and June 19, 1947 are now intertwined in my mind.

The more recent date was the unveiling of the Tesla Cybertruck in Los Angeles, in the same city and month and year the movie Blade Runner was set. I've never seen it, but Wikipedia calls it “a foundational work of the cyberpunk genre.”

The unveiling featured Tesla CEO Elon Musk throwing a steel ball at an “armor glass” window that wasn't supposed to break. It broke.

Three and a half years later production trucks that vaguely resemble the 2019 concept are in the hands of buyers, and it's been an unmitigated dumpster fire. Aside from the usual panel gaps the steel panels are wavy, message boards report dealerships without the training or equipment to repair them, YouTubers are cutting themselves trying to show that the sharp frunk edges are safe with the automatic closer, the tops of the sides of the bed have a tendency to fly off at highway speed, repairs are taking forever waiting for parts, and insurance companies are dropping policyholders.

And yet, a dedicated core of the fanbase cries “FUD!”

The term “fear, uncertainty, and doubt” has been around since at least 1920, it's prevalent throughout the tech industry, but anecdotally its use seems to have picked up with the rise of cryptocurrency as a way for true believers to hype each other up to ignore negative news. And I see it a lot when I take a peek into the Tesla community.

Just ignore the shills, bro. Oh, a lifelong Tesla believer has a complaint about their bricked Cybertruck? It's not real. Someone must've gotten to him. Ignore the FUD, stay on target. We're changing the world here. Crypto to the moon, and SpaceX to Mars!

I'm not sure if it's a strategy to coddle a childish billionaire with a fragile ego in hopes of getting faster service, but some of the most egregious complaints on the platform formerly known as Twitter are accompanied by some form of “I still LOVE my Cybertruck, it was simply awesome for the fraction of the time I've owned it that it's been functional!”

The previous date I'd mentioned before was the day the Tucker 48 was unveiled to the world. Well, a version of it was. The “Tin Goose” was so named because “the body was that it had 600 pounds of solder...Plenty of solder was used, for the same reason they used an Oldsmobile body for a seat buck when they started building the model—it saved time and got the job done.”

That extra 600 pounds of solder collapsed a major suspension component the morning of the unveiling, so Preston Tucker put on a long, drawn-out show to try and keep the audience's attention while his mechanics got the vehicle rolling again.

The Tucker had its own episode of FUD when a major newspaper reported started a rumor that the car couldn't go in reverse, a problem limited to the Tin Goose that the Tucker engineers couldn't shake.

The audience that day was full of small time stockholders who put what they could afford into the Tucker Corporation because they believed in Preston's mission of a safe and reliable automobile.

There were all sorts of innovations, some of which had to be dropped because they weren't technically feasible like torque converters on all wheels and fenders that turned with the front steering. Others, like seat belts and safety glass, are industry standard now. The iconic cyclops headlight that turned with the steering wheel was ahead of its time, the industry calls them adaptive headlight and my Subaru Ascent has them.

Those innovations that didn't make it to the production Tuckers, 50 of which rolled off the assembly line before it was shut down, were fodder for those claiming that Preston Tucker was a fraud. The innovations that did make it were proof that he was a real innovator who overpromised a little.

The 50 production Tuckers went out into a world before social media. It's not easy to find who their original owners were, but they quickly found their way into the hands of Tucker fans and believers. And it makes me wonder, how good were they really? How would ten thousand of them have stood up to daily use by regular folks who bought them off a new car lot like any Mercury of the era?

Are they more fondly remembered than they should be because what most folks know about Tucker is from fans? How realistic are the “if only the SEC hadn't...” daydreams? How many people know most of what they do about the car from Francis Ford Coppola's movie?

Conversely, what would have happened if the government swooped in and bankrupted Tesla in 2020 or 2021? There have been rumors of investigations into the marketing of “Full Self Driving” for years. Would automotive enthusiasts in future generations look back and say “look at all we could have had, and the government screwed us all out of it. But at least this current car has a feature the Tesla was supposed to have.” Likely, yes. We never knew just how much of the 2019 Cybertruck was wishes and marketing until the production truck hit the streets, and nobody has sympathy for the government even when it's in the right.

So how much of that applies to Tucker and his Torpedo? How much of history's fondness for the story would have been tarnished by having to crank out 5 million cars and administer a company large enough to do that?

Charles Pearson, who worked with Tucker for a couple of the Tucker Corporation's years, lists some of the ways things could have still gone wrong even if the car was all that he had promised.

Starting with a new and simplified design may, from the outside, look relatively simple. But even the most carefully worked out designs will have to be worked over endlessly, as the many people and departments involved demand changes that are necessary for their purposes. Such changes may result from whim, with authority behind it. Others stem from real or imagined necessity, most often from purchasing, production and sales. The end result will inevitably be a compromise that will placate, if not satisfy, the many persons and departments involved. Even then the design cannot remain static, because progress is a continuous process and only progress can meet competition.

When Tucker crashed the automotive field he found a hostile industry that was solidly entrenched and wanted no interlopers poaching in its private preserve. The auto industry was long established, it had learned the rules of government, even helped to make them. So when a newcomer like Tucker entered the field with an ingenious and practical plan to raise capital, the government was there, ready to block him.

“You can't do it that way. You will have to do it this way.”

There were other rules, hundreds, even thousands of rules, and the government was there ready to enforce every one of them. When a newcomer tries to cut corners he invites the law to land on his head.

Besides the opposition of powerful competitors and the constant harassment by government, there was the seething and ferment that is a part of any large organization. People inside and out who want to capture part or all of the operation and take it over. Plots and counter plots, ambition and intrigue. Angle for a raise. Undercut the boss and get his job. Sell out to the enemy and get a better job there. Dethrone the king and take over.

These, in ridiculously simplified form, were the problems that Preston Tucker faced when, on a comparative shoestring, he horned into one of the most savagely competitive fields in business today. It is a tribute to his ability and determination that he got as far as he did.

Who could have done any better under the circumstances?

Well, Elon Musk did. He proved a new American automaker can succeed while so many others did not. Hudson and Rambler and Studebaker produced wonderfully innovative cars but are gone anyway, and the Big 3 aren't even the Big 3 anymore...what's left of Chrysler is owned by Stellantis. Foreign automakers have established themselves here, but the likes of Toyota and Volkswagen and Hyundai were able to weather the storm because they had the support of their governments and strong sales in home markets to supply the capital required to establish themselves in the American market.

So Elon both proved that Tucker could have succeeded, but at the same time he's also proving that whatever Tucker would have looked like throughout the fifties and sixties won't have resembled our dreams. It likely would have had its share of ugly failures, product flops, personal and political scandals, and having Preston Tucker as a public figure through his elder years might have generated a few embarrassing episodes. Elon has X, Henry Ford had the Dearborn Independent, and I have a lot of cynicism.

Still, it would have been awesome to see Preston's take on the muscle car.

History Beyond the Bumpers

The Crittenden Automotive Library includes information from all aspects of automotive transportation and competition. This section highlights topics related to automobiles other than vehicles themselves.

Having my new desk in the living room means I don't watch the same old documentaries about plane crashes and World War II that I used to in the basement. There have been some murder mystery documentaries, a rewatch of Reba, and now we're on The Food That Built America.

Of course my ears perk up a little when cars make an appearance. Harry Burt bought a dozen customized Ford Model Ts and turned them into the first Good Humor cars after a little customization. The documentary said $4000 for the dozen, but that's $333 per truck and the Model T alone cost more than that before adding refrigeration. That $4000 is $62700 in today's money. A basic base model Ford Transit Connect starts at $34,100 and a refrigerated one runs about $56,000. Considering the added costs of developing the freezer truck concept with 1920s insulation technology, any number of trucks more than one for that 4 grand seems like a bargain. And it makes sense why we don't see ice cream trucks out on the streets anymore!

Tom and James Monaghan bought a pizza restaurant named DomiNick's and fought over how to run the joint. In 1961 James traded his stake in the restaurant for a 1959 Volkswagen Beetle they had been using for deliveries. After a name change and some growth, Tom sold his stake in the now Domino's Pizza 38 years later for nearly a billion dollars. I wonder what happened to that little Beetle, and what it would be worth to Domino's today, sort of like Papa John's John Schnatter finding his old Camaro. Domino's has a replica in their headquarters.

While the modern box van food truck doesn't have nearly the personality of vintage Good Humor vehicles, the food seems a lot better nowadays.

629.2

The Dewey Decimal System's designation for automobiles falls within the 629.2 range. This section is about The Crittenden-Walczak Collection.

The first shelf is in its permanent spot! Yeah, it's a small one, but it's a start.

The last of the old damaged display cases that are being discarded is in the driveway, and the final display case is actually nice enough to be staying. It's also front-loading so I don't have any issues with leaving space in the back, I can put it up against something else.

This weekend starts the next project which involves moving a couple of glass door bookcases & an antique desk out from the wall, painting the wall green, lighting the bookcases, and putting them back. I've even taken a few days off of the day job to get this done.

Once that's done the bookcases will be loaded with some of the loose 1:18 scale die cast that's been taking up a lot more square footage than it should, and that's another small section of the new office done. More importantly, it will free up the space to make the next steps easier.

After that the display case gets moved and the first bookshelves (intended to actually hold books) will go in. Then I'll catch up on the inventory.

Of the books that already have been inventoried, they're going in a Bibliography format that is replacing the Reference Desk listings in each Topic Page. Soon the Topic Pages will list books that are available digitally, books that we have but can't share online, and books that aren't currently in the collection in one list with an “Availability” tag that will either link to the content or link to the Reference Desk page.

Telemetry

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