Preston Tucker Category: Person Wikipedia: Preston Tucker Born: 21 September 1903 Died: 26 December 1956 Hometown: Lincoln Park, Michigan Description: An inventor, engineer, and founder of the Tucker Corporation. Page Sections: Biography · Bibliography · Documents

Biography

The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Preston Tucker page on 30 May 2024, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Preston Thomas Tucker was an American automobile entrepreneur who developed the innovative Tucker 48 sedan, initially nicknamed the "Tucker Torpedo", an automobile which introduced many features that have since become widely used in modern cars.

Production of the Tucker '48 was shut down on 3 March 1949 amid scandal and controversial accusations of stock fraud, of which Tucker was eventually acquitted. The 1988 movie Tucker: The Man and His Dream is based on Tucker's spirit and the saga surrounding the car's production.

First learning to drive at age 11, Tucker was obsessed with automobiles from an early age. At age 16, Preston Tucker began purchasing late model automobiles, repairing and refurbishing them to sell for a profit. He attended the Cass Technical High School in Detroit, but he quit school and landed a job as an office boy for the Cadillac Motor Company, where he used roller skates to make his rounds more efficiently. In 1922, young Tucker joined the Lincoln Park Police Department against the pleas of his mother, his interest stirred by his desire to drive and ride the fast, high-performance police cars and motorcycles. His mother had him removed from the LPPD, pointing out to police officials that at 19, he was below the department's minimum required age.

Tucker and his new wife, Vera (married in 1923 at 20), then took over a six-month lease on a gas station near Lincoln Park, running the station together. Vera would run the station during the day while Preston worked on the Ford Motor Company assembly line. After the lease ran out, Tucker quit Ford and returned to the LPPD, but in his first winter back he was banned from driving police vehicles after using a blowtorch to cut a hole in the dashboard of a cruiser to allow engine heat to warm the cabin.

During the early 1930s, Tucker began an annual one-month trek to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Having a heavy interest in the race cars and their designers, Tucker met Harry Miller, maker of more Indianapolis 500-winning engines than any other during this period. Tucker moved to Indianapolis to be closer to the racing car development scene and worked as the transportation manager for a beer distributor, overseeing the fleet of delivery trucks for the company.

A better engineer than businessman, Miller declared bankruptcy in 1933 and was looking for new opportunities. Tucker persuaded Miller to join him in building race cars, and they formed "Miller and Tucker, Inc." in 1935. The company's first job was building 10 souped-up Ford V-8 racers for Henry Ford. However, the time to develop and test the cars was insufficient, and the steering boxes on all entrants overheated and locked up, causing them to drop out of the race. The design was later perfected by privateers, with examples running at Indy through 1948. Miller and Tucker, Inc. continued race car development and various other ventures until Miller's death in 1943. Tucker was close friends with Miller and even helped Miller's widow pay for her husband's funeral costs. While working with Miller, Tucker met the Chevrolet brothers and chief mechanic/engineer John Eddie Offutt, who would later help Tucker develop and build the first prototype of the Tucker 48. Tucker's outgoing personality and his involvement at Indianapolis made him well known in the automotive industry by 1939.

After the war, the public was ready for new car designs, but the Big Three automakers had not developed any new models since 1941, and were in no hurry to introduce them. That provided great opportunities for new small, independent automakers who could develop new cars more rapidly than the huge legacy automakers. Tucker saw his opportunity to develop and bring his "car of tomorrow" to market. Studebaker was first with an all-new postwar model, but Tucker took a different tack, designing a safety-oriented car with innovative features and modern styling.

Tucker's first design appeared in Science Illustrated magazine in December 1946, showing a futuristic version of the car with a hydraulic drive system designed by George Lawson, along with a photo of a 1/8 scale model blown up to appear full sized, titled the "Torpedo on Wheels". That was only an early rendering of the proposal, with its design features yet to meet reality, but the motoring public was now excited about the Tucker.

Bibliography

Title & Subtitle	Details
The Indomitable Tin Goose The True Story of Preston Tucker and His Car	Year & Type: 1960 Nonfiction Author: Charles T. Pearson Publisher: Abelard-Schuman Dimensions: 5.75" x 8.5" hardcover w/jacket Content: 285 pages with black & white photo sections Topics: Tucker, Preston Tucker Availability: Complete Book Online (text & images)
The Indomitable Tin Goose Preston Tucker: A Biography	Year & Type: 1988 Nonfiction Author: Charles T. Pearson Publisher: Pocket Books Dimensions: 4.125" x 6.75" paperback Content: 238 pages with black & white photo sections Topics: Tucker, Preston Tucker Availability: Reference Desk

Documents

Date	Document Name & Details	Documents
14 June 1949	Design for an Automobile United States Patent USD 154,192 Preston T. Tucker for Tucker Corporation	PDF - 132KB - 4 pages