by Steve Lehto
The defendants thought their best bet was to call on Joseph Turnbull, the SEC accountant who had been the prosecution’s linchpin in Chicago, his testimony considered so important that the prosecutors had saved him to be their last witness. On July 19, 1955, the attorneys in the civil actions traveled to Boston—where Turnbull lived—to question him.
Once again, however, the accountant was not as helpful as Tucker’s opponents hoped. They asked him to identify the summaries of “questionable transactions” Turnbull had made for the criminal trial. One summary was for corporate payments made to Preston Tucker, totaling $380,199.36. After a few questions confirming that Turnbull had created the summary and was familiar with it, the defense attorney turned him over to Tucker’s attorney for cross-examination.
Turnbull had introduced the same summary at trial, and the defense had a field day with it then. This time was no different. Among the suspect items paid to Tucker was his salary for two years, totaling almost $100,000. Was it wrong for Tucker to have drawn a salary? Turnbull waffled: “That is a matter of opinion, I believe.”1 Did he know for a fact that Tucker was reimbursed by the corporation for expenses he hadn’t incurred? He was unsure.2 While Turnbull backpedaled, the defense attorney—the one who had called Turnbull as a witness—began objecting often—thirty-four times in just a few hours, not counting numerous other interruptions without specific objections. When Tucker’s attorney started a question by asking, “But I think we can agree, can we not—?” the defense attorney replied, “I object to asking the witness for any agreements.”3 When Tucker’s attorney pulled out the transcript from the criminal trial to show how Turnbull’s testimony had changed over time, the attorney objected.4 When Tucker’s attorney agreed to give the defense attorney a “continuing objection” so it would be unnecessary for him to keep objecting, he continued objecting: “It is understood that I have a continuing objection that this isn’t proper cross-examination.”5 He then objected eighteen more times, on the same grounds, despite having no need to do so.
Despite the waters being muddied by the defense attorney, Turnbull’s testimony helped Tucker. Turnbull admitted he had not looked at any of the Tucker documents in six years, and even prior to that, he had not bothered to check the items he had listed as being questionable in the corporation’s books. He had seen the two cars Tucker had sold to the company but did not bother to find out that Tucker had sold them for exactly what he paid for them. Other money for which Tucker had been reimbursed had likewise not been checked. Turnbull had no idea whether the expenses were legitimate or not.6
Tucker’s attorney asked Turnbull point-blank if he had any knowledge that the expenditures claimed by Tucker and his associates were “not bona fide and proper.” The defense attorney objected vigorously, of course, after which Turnbull said, “Well, I have no knowledge of those claims at all.”
By this time, Turnbull had no strong opinion about the financial dealings of Preston Tucker or his corporation. All he had done was look at the books, write some summaries, and reach no conclusions about whether any of it was legitimate.7 As far as he was concerned on the day of his deposition, Turnbull was not prepared to say that Tucker and his associates had actually done anything wrong.
When the deposition ended, the defense attorneys went to the judge and asked for Turnbull’s deposition to be sealed. At the time, witnesses in civil cases routinely asked for testimony to be sealed, and courts thought little of granting the requests. The judge agreed in this case as well, and the transcript would remain sealed until 2014.
The Last Days of Preston Tucker
Preston Tucker wasn’t relying solely on lawsuits to reclaim his good name. In the years following the publication of his Cars article, he also took steps toward reaching the goals laid out in that essay. Tucker hoped to design an all-new automobile that would at first be sold in the form of a kit, containing parts simple enough for buyers to assemble themselves.
As Tucker imagined it, the car would be fun to drive and cost under $1,000. Again, his goals were lofty, probably impossible, but he took steps toward reaching them. He invited an automotive designer named Alexis de Sakhnoffsky to Ypsilanti Machine and Tool. (Those who had wondered about why it had been held in his mother’s name certainly now saw the wisdom in it: he had managed to hang on to this shop even though he had lost pretty much everything else related to the ill-fated Tucker Corporation.) Sakhnoffsky was a Russian-born designer who had worked on everything from boats to airplanes and often referred to himself as Count Sakhnoffsky.1 He had worked on the design staff at the Auburn Automobile Company in 1931 and even designed a “beautiful” Kelvinator refrigerator in 1936.2
When Tucker brought the designer to his shop, he presented his new approach. Spread out across several workbenches were many parts necessary to assemble a car, which were readily available from automotive vendors and could be used in any model. Tucker asked Sakhnoffsky if he could design a sports car around these parts. If so, the manufacturing process would be drastically reduced and the tooling necessary to build the car would be minimized. Sakhnoffsky saw the “pitfalls” inherent in having to design around ready-made parts, but was “fascinated by the thought of becoming associated with such an incredibly imaginative man as Preston Tucker.”3 He said he would do it.
Sakhnoffsky listened spellbound to Tucker explain his ideas for the new car. Tucker told him that many cars’ fenders accumulated dirt and mud, making them needlessly heavier. If a car’s fenders could be removed, it would make it easier to clean, so he wanted removable fenders on the new car. He also wanted the headlights to steer with the direction of the car. And, of course, he wanted the cyclops center headlight. It was Tucker’s automotive trademark.
Other ideas were imported from Tucker’s previous automobile as well. The car would be rear-engine drive and the instrument panel easy to use. He and Sakhnoffsky examined ways to keep the cost down and knew that the cost of sheet metal dies would be their largest obstacle. Assembly would be expensive as well. Tucker wondered if some body panels could be made from composite materials and asked Sakhnoffsky to investigate other industries, like the recreational vehicle industry, where composite body panels were gaining popularity. For inspiration, Tucker gave Sakhnoffsky a Harry Miller sketch of a race car design. Sakhnoffsky went to work.4
Sakhnoffsky drew a car that fit Tucker’s vision of a fun and sporty car, and Tucker began looking into ways to launch the new project. He knew he could not get financing on any scale, and he told Sakhnoffsky that they could arrange for the kit cars to be shipped to automotive garages once buyers had paid for them. The cars would be designed to be built in ten hours by a mechanic. If the mechanic was paid six dollars an hour, the assembly cost would only be sixty dollars. Tucker believed he could easily find mechanics willing to do the work. He also looked for banks willing to act as escrow agents, holding buyers’ money until the cars were delivered.
* * *
In 1953 or 1954 Tucker developed a hacking cough. When it would not go away, he visited a local doctor. A chest X-ray revealed a spot on one of his lungs. It was lung cancer.5 A lifetime of smoking had caught up with the Lucky Strike smoker. Tucker vowed that he was going to fight and asked around about treatment options. When everyone told him there was little to be done, someone told him about Dr. William F. Koch, a doctor from Michigan who claimed to have a cure for cancer. Koch’s treatment, which he called Glyoxylide, had been sold in huge quantities before the FDA prosecuted him for fraud. During the trial, expert witnesses testified that the medicine was nothing more than distilled water, and the chemical Koch claimed to have been using was not known to cure anything. In his first trial the jury could not reach a verdict. In the second, a mistrial was granted when a juror became ill. Koch moved to Brazil and apparently continued treating patients there.6 Tucker began traveling to South America for Glyoxylide therapy.
Toward the end of 1955, Tucker announced in an article he wrote for Car Life magazine titled “I Never Gave Up” th
at the “new Tucker” was very near ready to be sold to the public. The magazine’s cover bore a beautiful artist’s rendering of what would later be called the Carioca, captioned PRESTON TUCKER’S SECRET NEW CAR. Inside, Tucker retold some of his story and then described the Carioca. Like in the Pic article announcing the Tucker Torpedo, Tucker blurred the line between what he wanted to do and what he had already done: “I have this new car now!”7
He admitted he was starting from scratch because “when the trial was over I was broke.” He had spent his time since the acquittal running Ypsilanti Machine and Tool and saving his money to launch the new car. He noted that his Tucker sedans were still on the road and were proving themselves to be quality cars. Even so, Tucker again emphasized that they were, in his mind, “obsolete.”8 He avoided specifics, probably because of how his optimistic figures had been used against him at trial, and simply noted that the Carioca would be “a utility car with sports car performance. It will sell for less than the lowest-priced stock car on the market today.”9
He described the Carioca as a rear-engine car with rear-wheel drive. One difference from the Tucker ’48 was that this time the engine would be air-cooled, making the system simpler and lighter.10 The Carioca would be safe, containing many of the advanced features the Tucker ’48 had, and even some it didn’t. Along with the padded dash and the pop-out windshield, the Carioca would also have a collapsible steering column “that will give, instead of killing the unfortunate driver who happens to be behind it.” But, again, Tucker was cautious about his descriptions: “Brakes will be the best we can get, probably disk brakes which we didn’t have the time or money to develop to our satisfaction the first time around.”11
After describing the car, Tucker indicated that he was hoping to raise $2 million to launch the company. He didn’t explain how he was going to do so on such a shoestring budget but said he could do it. And he said he would love to build the cars in America if he could. But, he granted, “it may even be that I will have to start in another country. There have been offers but I have been reluctant to accept them. I love my country and I believe I have had a part in building it. I will leave it only as a last resort.”12 He did not seem optimistic on his chances of staying in the United States, at least while the political climate stayed the same. “When government agencies become the tools of private monopoly, individual initiative and enterprise are doomed.”13
* * *
Tucker worked on his Carioca out of the office of his two-story facility not far from his house. A portion of the plant had been rented by Joe Butcko, the tool and die maker who had gone with Tucker to New Orleans. Butcko had not gone to Chicago to work for the Tucker Corporation, instead starting his own successful business. Tucker now made most of his income renting out space in his buildings. Butcko often stopped in to visit Tucker, who “in that great big building was all by himself.”14 He presented a different figure from the high-flying dealmaker of just a few years earlier. Tucker quietly confided that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and had traveled to South America seeking a cure. He was optimistic he could beat it, though, and told Butcko not to worry about him.15
Tucker gave Butcko advice on business. Butcko had told Tucker about how someone was threatening to sue him after a business deal had gone sour. Butcko thought it was unfair, since the other party hadn’t lived up to its end of the bargain. Tucker told Butcko to simply call the attorney for the other side and tell them to file suit, so Butcko could file a counterclaim. By Tucker’s reckoning, the other side would back down when they realized they faced a claim twice the size of their own. And they did. The advice saved Butcko $4,000.16
When no domestic backers materialized for his Carioca, Tucker entertained offers from elsewhere. Traveling back and forth to Brazil seeking a cure for his cancer, he had made connections there; he met Juscelino Kubitschek, a state governor in Brazil who would become the country’s president in 1956. Kubitschek indicated to Tucker that tax breaks might be available for his venture if he was willing to build the cars in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil could not offer any financial assistance beyond tax breaks, but Tucker liked the idea and had apparently been thinking of Brazil when he named the new car the Carioca—the name of a popular Brazilian ballroom dance and a nickname given to residents of Rio de Janeiro.17
Around Christmas 1955, Butcko stopped by Tucker’s house with a present—two bottles of White Horse Scotch, Tucker’s favorite drink—to thank him for the advice he had given him on the threatened lawsuit. Tucker greeted him wearing a bathrobe. It was the only time Butcko had seen Tucker not wearing a suit and tie. The two sat at Tucker’s dining room table and Tucker confided in him. “You know, Joe, I had a lot of friends and I did them a lot of favors and I paid a lot of people way the hell more than they were worth. You bring me two bottles of scotch and I don’t even get a Christmas card from those bastards.” Tucker was depressed. He told Butcko his cancer was progressing.18
In August 1956 the family held a huge picnic in the yard behind the Tucker home in Ypsilanti. “He wanted everybody to come home and be there. Everybody was dressed up but apparently everybody knew that he was sick and that he was going to die,” recalls Cynthia Tucker Fordon, his granddaughter, who was six years old at the time.19 She remembers that he still looked pretty healthy and did his best to enjoy the time with his family, especially the children who were there that day. He still had his sense of humor. When he had walked out wearing all white—suit, shirt, tie, shoes—one relative said, “Look, it’s Jesus Christ!” Everyone laughed, even Preston, albeit a bit sheepishly.20
* * *
Tucker traveled to Brazil several times in 1956.21 On his last trip he became seriously ill and returned to Ypsilanti. On the flight home the plane made an emergency landing, because Tucker could not breathe.22 He was placed on a ventilator, and when he arrived in Michigan he was admitted to Beyer Memorial Hospital on September 1. The diagnosis was not good. When family members visited, he was in an oxygen tent.23 In early December 1956 the New York Times reported he was in serious condition.24 Shortly before Christmas he developed pneumonia and his condition rapidly deteriorated.25 He died the day after Christmas.26 His son Noble later told the press that his father had been exhausted from his travels, having flown to Brazil and back three times just that year.27
Tucker’s funeral was a low-key affair considering the headlines he had made a decade earlier. Joe Butcko did not even hear that he had passed away until long after the funeral. The service was attended mostly by close friends, family, and Tucker’s coworkers from his time with the Lincoln Park Police Department. Pallbearers included the current Lincoln Park police chief and two former chiefs, along with some officers on the force with whom he worked.28 He was buried in Flat Rock, Michigan.29 He was survived by his mother, his wife, three sons, and two daughters.30
After Tucker died, his lawsuits, still dragging through the courts, were dismissed. The parties were still not done with the discovery phase, so we will never know what Tucker and his attorneys might have proven if the suits had made it to trial. Most of the news stories reporting his death focused on his criminal trial and the failure of his corporation. Some of the notices reminded readers that his car had been dubbed an “engineering monstrosity.”31 No one spoke of the cars that survived, and no one defended his memory—at least, not then.
In 1960 Charles Pearson wrote The Indomitable Tin Goose, a biography of Tucker, which primarily focused on the time the two men had spent together. Some readers sensed Pearson was pro-Tucker, defending him because it was Pearson’s article that had started the Tucker juggernaut in the first place. It would be several decades before someone with a bigger platform would come to the defense of Preston Tucker’s legacy.
The Movie
In 1988 Francis Ford Coppola released Tucker: The Man and His Dream, starring Jeff Bridges as Preston Tucker. The director told an interviewer it was a labor of love: Tucker had always fascinated him. As a child, Coppola said, he saw his father spend $5
,000 on Tucker Corporation stock—all of which he lost—and he had seen a Tucker ’48 sedan in the flesh. His father had even placed an order for one.1 Even after the car never arrived—and it was clear that the down payment would never be returned—the elder Coppola never said a bad word about Tucker. The filmmaker took it as a lesson: one had to admire Tucker for trying to do something original.2 To Coppola, the Tucker ’48 became “a mythical thing.”3
In 1974 he bought the maroon Tucker sedan #10374 and tracked down Alex Tremulis for expert advice on restoring it. Interacting with one of Tucker’s lead designers gave Coppola the idea to make a movie about Tucker, but Tremulis didn’t seem all that impressed with the notion. He said, “Coppola doesn’t really understand automobiles, I think. He’s a difficult man. He’s got 5,000 bottles of wine or whatever—la-di-da. He plays music at night—la-di-da.”5 Nothing came of the idea at the time, but Coppola loved his Tucker and bought another in 1980, the blue #1014.6
Over the next few years, Coppola would often return to the idea of adapting Preston Tucker’s story into a film. At one point he took serious steps toward making it as a musical. Someone talked some sense into him and suggested he make it as a regular drama.7 He mentioned Tucker’s story to George Lucas, who liked the story of Tucker’s battles: “The thing that fascinates me is that Tucker is about how you bring dreams into reality, which is something filmmakers do all the time. It is interesting to me to hear a story about how that happens—and how you have to go against the system.”8 George Lucas agreed to produce the film, while Coppola would direct.
Despite Alex Tremulis’s opinion of the director’s knowledge of cars, he agreed to join the project as a consultant. He visited the set and met the actor who would play him, Elias Koteas. Koteas was clean-shaven, while Tremulis always wore a mustache. Tremulis shook the actor’s hand and reached up to stick a piece of black tape under the actor’s nose.9 Viewers of the movie will note that the producers agreed with Tremulis’s suggestion: Koteas wore a mustache in the film.