Preston Tucker and His Battle to Build the Car of Tomorrow

Home > Other > Preston Tucker and His Battle to Build the Car of Tomorrow > Page 21
Preston Tucker and His Battle to Build the Car of Tomorrow Page 21

by Steve Lehto


  Coppola sought advice from Preston Tucker’s relatives and acquaintances. Vera, Tucker’s widow, and four of his children consulted on the film set and signed off on the script. John Tucker even lent a pair of his father’s cufflinks to Jeff Bridges, who wore them in the movie’s climactic courtroom scene. “Having those Tucker cufflinks gave me a terrific energy and inspiration,” Bridges recalled. “Having Preston’s family around, so willing to talk and share their lives with us, was just like a gold mine for an actor.”10 Preston’s granddaughter Cynthia Tucker Fordon spent time on the set and answered questions for the actors and filmmakers, ensuring such an attention to detail that Bridges handled his cigarettes the same way Preston did.11

  Coppola reproduced many other aspects of the story quite realistically. He located a Ford assembly plant in Richmond, California, that had furnished Jeeps and other items during World War II, to replicate the Chicago Dodge plant.12 Today, the plant is part of the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park. Keen-eyed movie viewers might notice mountains in the backgrounds of scenes set in Michigan, but such infidelities are minor. The attention to detail extended even to the design of the Tuckers’ Chicago apartment building; Rick Fizdale, who has written a history of the building, notes that the apartment scenes in the movie—although not shot at the original location—were quite reminiscent of the actual interior of the apartment.13

  To Tucker aficionados, the film is remarkable for another reason. Coppola wanted as many authentic Tucker sedans as possible in the movie and asked the Tucker community for help. Coppola’s two Tuckers were featured in the film—his maroon #1037 played the role of the Tin Goose—and twenty-two more were volunteered by members of the Tucker Automobile Club of America. Many owners drove their cars during filming, putting both the cars and their owners into the movie.14

  The movie cost $23 million to make—quite close to what Tucker himself had raised to launch his car company.15 George Lucas saw further parallels between Tucker and Coppola, who had fought his own battles with an intransigent industry. “The character of Tucker has certain resemblances to Francis. They are both half creative genius and half enthusiastic promoter. They both have that ability to continue dreaming even after a dream has been deferred or delayed or somehow impeded.”16 Coppola saw the similarity too. While discussing Tucker, he told an interviewer, “All movies parallel your life.”17

  Tucker was not a financial success, but it was well received by critics, and it renewed the debate about whether Tucker had suffered at the hands of malevolent government bureaucrats or from his own incompetence or ill intent. The movie simplified some of the plotlines, choosing to pin all the blame for Tucker’s failure on Homer Ferguson, working at the behest of the Detroit automakers. In the film, Tucker and Ferguson even meet in Washington, where Ferguson all but tells him he will be put out of business to protect Ferguson’s constituents.

  Many people compared Tucker to John DeLorean, another renegade carmaker who launched his own revolutionary car company to much fanfare in the 1970s, only to see the enterprise crash amid allegations of fraud and malfeasance. In 1982 DeLorean was also tried by the federal government, though he was charged not with securities violations but with drug trafficking. He was acquitted—the jury agreed with the defense that DeLorean was the victim of entrapment—after his attorney took a page from the Tucker trial and called no witnesses. Did he compare himself to Tucker? “Oh, sure, I see similarities,” DeLorean told a reporter in 1988. But he had no regrets. “You give it a shot. You know it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Tucker’s daughter Marilyn also was reminded of her father when she watched DeLorean’s trial unfold. “I’ve thought about the similarities between my father and DeLorean quite a bit,” she told an interviewer.18

  At least one Tucker expert involved in the movie thought it presented Tucker in a little bit too much of a glorified light. A Milwaukee Tucker collector named Al Reinert was consulted by the filmmakers because of his extensive knowledge of Tucker, gained as he traveled the country buying Tuckers and Tucker parts, and speaking with people who had built the cars. At the time of the movie, Reinert owned two Tuckers and was often asked about details to make the script and the sets more accurate. He told an interviewer in 1988 that there were two sides to Tucker, at least from what he had gathered over the years.

  “Preston Tucker was a very advance-minded person. The man did have brains. The man was bucking the system.” The downside? “In the end, he used these people. His methods were very, very shabby. The man was working way beyond his means. He just promised too much, too fast, and he couldn’t deliver.”19

  After

  After the criminal trial, Cliff Knoble went home and could not find work in advertising. The suspicion that he must have done something illegal hung over him despite his acquittal. He was in his fifties. His wife took jobs babysitting while he sold used cars and worked as a retail clerk. Eventually, he turned to writing. He didn’t turn the corner financially until he received his first advance—one hundred dollars.1

  Alex Tremulis had better luck. Brilliant automotive designers are not as common as admen. As a result, Tremulis had no trouble lining up job interviews. But at Nash Motors, his interviewer did not believe him when he said that he’d designed the Tucker ’48. Tremulis later said, “The chief engineer greeted me with the statement, ‘You are the eighth designer who claims to have designed the Tucker automobile.’ I excused myself and went to my car and brought back my portfolio of my cars, aircraft and Duesenbergs. When he looked at my designs, he laughed and apologized . . . ‘The other seven,’ he said, ‘were bums.’”2

  Nash had no room on its payroll, so Tremulis ended up working for Kaiser-Frazer in Michigan, the company that could borrow any amount of money it wanted from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Later he went to Ford Motor Company, where he led the Advanced Design department until 1963.3 He then opened his own design consulting firm in Ann Arbor, Michigan. One of his projects was the Gyronaut, a motorcycle specifically designed to break the land speed record, which it did at the Bonneville Salt Flats. The motorcycle, using an engine that only put out 120 horsepower, managed a top speed of 245 mph.4 Tremulis called it “the fastest hunk of ballistic missilery you’re ever going to see.”5

  In 1968 Tremulis moved to Ventura, California. He worked briefly with people attempting to revive the Duesenberg nameplate and again on a land speed record. This one was for a motor home, Ramona Motor Coach’s Travoy, which reached speeds in excess of 97 mph on a dry lake bed in the California desert. Tremulis even piloted the coach during a high-speed run. He also did design work for Honda and Subaru.6

  Tremulis was recognized for his work during his lifetime, vindication for a man whose most noted design was a car disgraced by legal problems. He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1982. “It took me years to get out of the Hall of Shame, but I finally made it. I kept going. I was a little wilder than everybody else.”7 In 1987 the Society of Automotive Engineers recognized several cars as “significant automobiles of the past half century,” and included the Tucker ’48. It was in good company: others in the group were the Cord 810, the first Lincoln Continental, the Studebaker Starliner, and the 1956 Corvette.

  When the Coppola movie about Tucker came out, the wave of surrounding publicity led many reporters to track down Tremulis and ask him about Tucker. In 1988 he told a journalist, “Preston was a terrific guy. Hell, we loved him and worked our hearts out for him. He was one of the finest people I’ve ever met.”8 Alex Tremulis died December 29, 1991.

  Vera Tucker, Preston’s wife, lived until 1995, long enough to see her husband’s legacy preserved in the Coppola movie. Shortly after its release, a reporter asked her daughter, Marilyn McAndrew, what Vera thought of the film. “She thought it caught the spirit of the family very well, and my father’s magnetic spirit.” McAndrew had helped Coppola during filming and had told the director, “My father is looking down on this and s
miling.”9 Although Vera had been living in Arizona when she passed away, she was buried in Flat Rock, Michigan, near Preston.

  Philip Egan, who helped Tremulis bring his drawings to life and did most of the design work on the dashboard and interior of the Tucker, also had a successful career as a designer after the Tucker Corporation. He designed household appliances for Sears and then worked for a company designing hearing aids. Eventually, like Tremulis, he opened his own design firm. In 1989 he wrote Design and Destiny, his account of working at the Tucker Corporation four decades earlier. In 2008 Egan passed away. Like Tucker, he died on December 26.10

  Otto Kerner Jr., the prosecutor of Preston Tucker and his associates, had an illustrious career after the trial—and then a spectacular crash. First he became a Cook County judge. Then, in 1960 and 1964, he was elected governor of Illinois. He said he planned to step down from the governorship in 1968 because of his wife’s health but was almost immediately nominated to the US Court of Appeals by Lyndon Johnson. He took the bench in May 1968.11 Many people believed he had stepped down as governor specifically so he could accept the judgeship.

  In December 1971 Kerner was indicted, along with four other people, for fraud. The attorney general charged him with receiving discounted stock in two racetracks in return for political favors. The charges included bribery, conspiracy, tax evasion, and perjury before a grand jury. He was tried along with several other defendants in 1973, and convicted.12 He became “the first sitting U.S. appellate judge to be convicted in the nation’s history.”13 He was also the first in a series of Illinois governors to be incarcerated. Sentenced to three years in prison, he was released early, the parole board agreeing with his argument that his health required it and that his reputation had been so damaged that further prison time was unnecessary. He was right about his health; upon his release, he checked into a hospital to be treated for lung cancer. He died in 1976.14 Kerner had spent the last few years of his life unsuccessfully appealing his convictions.

  Drew Pearson, the muckraking radio man and newspaper columnist who virtually destroyed the Tucker Corporation with his June 6, 1948, radio broadcast, died in 1969. When he passed away, his bank account was overdrawn. His estate paid to settle two outstanding libel suits against him. Two publishers demanded the return of advances paid for books he failed to write. A farm he owned had lost $70,000 the year before he died. Pearson left behind seven different wills, assuring that his heirs would spend much time—and money—fighting over what little he had left behind.15 One United Press International article summarized his career: “Government officials assailed many of his stories as inaccurate . . . or even blatant lies. Among those in high places who called him a liar were two presidents—Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.”16

  The Tucker family home in Ypsilanti still stands. Shortly after the movie’s release in 1988, a Michigan investor approached the owner about purchasing it and turning it into a Tucker museum. He hoped to set up a shop across the street from the home and to manufacture Cariocas as well. By the end of 1992, the plans for the museum and auto plant had fallen through and the owners placed the home back on the market.17 At the time of this book’s writing, the house is unoccupied.

  The Tucker Legacy

  Preston Tucker set out to launch a car company and build a revolutionary car that incorporated features he was convinced would become commonplace: aerodynamic styling, disc brakes, fuel injection, a safer passenger compartment. Not all these features made it into the initial run of Tucker ’48s, but it seems clear that if the company had survived, more of them would have.

  Preston Tucker is remembered today as a visionary. The curator of the National Museum of American History, Roger White, said, “Tucker thought of the automobile as a malleable object. He was kind of like Frank Lloyd Wright in that respect, unafraid to start from scratch.”1

  Still, Preston Tucker’s legacy will always contain the element of the unknown. How might the future of the American automobile industry have been different if Tucker had succeeded? Roger White suggested that it does not matter. “If someone has a beautiful dream, but doesn’t know how to achieve it, is he a great man or not? Whether Tucker was a great man or not, he was a quintessential American.”2

  There were two reasons Tucker did not succeed. The first was simply the problem of money. Tucker raised somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 or $28 million. Although he hoped to raise more as his company developed, he underestimated the overall cost of competing with the major auto manufacturers of the time. Henry Kaiser, another carmaker who failed in his efforts to conquer the car market in the post-WWII era, had managed to raise more than $50 million to finance his operation. Later he said he would have needed closer to $200 million to fortify his company for longer-term success.3

  Tucker was unrealistic about the difficulty of mass-producing automobiles, particularly at the price point he had promised consumers. He was a salesman, and his true skill was salesmanship. He was not an engineer or an astute businessman. Perhaps he could have succeeded if he had surrounded himself with the right people and given them the authority to do their jobs, but that never happened. Tucker was not a criminal; he was naive.

  But even if Tucker could have raised enough money and hired the right people, he would still have had to contend with the obstacles thrown up by the government. Who was behind the push to shut Tucker down? Some suspicion will always fall on Homer Ferguson. Tucker was convinced that Senator Ferguson was his primary antagonist, but he had little more than hearsay to back up this belief. Certainly, Harry A. McDonald, who was also from Detroit, had a major hand in the attack on Tucker.4 There is ample evidence that the SEC, at the direction of McDonald, went out of its way to harm the Tucker Corporation by telling Drew Pearson of the investigation and then leaking its confidential report to the press. But what motivated the SEC? Were they told to do it by someone else?

  Another possibility is that employees of the SEC were simply frustrated by their inability to do what they believed their jobs to be. The SEC was tasked with protecting investors from unscrupulous promoters. In Tucker’s case, the SEC had overseen the doom-and-gloom warnings of the prospectus and taken the extra step of issuing a statement warning investors to steer clear of the offering. And yet investors still flocked to invest. What else could the SEC do? Perhaps the effort to take down Tucker was simply viewed as another step to protect investors from what the SEC perceived as a bad investment. This is not to say they were right. However, it may explain their motivation.

  Not everyone believed Tucker was brought down by outside forces at all. In later years, Alex Tremulis said he did not think anyone in particular caused the downfall of Tucker. He chalked it up to mismanagement and a shortage of money. Were other manufacturers worried about Tucker? “I really saw very little professional jealousy take place,” he insisted.5 Of course, Tremulis was the designer of the car. He did not have day-to-day interaction with the business side of the Tucker Corporation. If someone had gone out of his way to shut down the Tucker Corporation, would Tremulis have been in a position to see it?

  The prosecution of Preston Tucker and his associates should have caused every businessman in America to shudder. Tucker launched a car company and promoted it in an attempt to raise money. His promotional zeal was treated as a crime, and those who assisted him were charged with crimes as well. What if the SEC had decided to target other US companies for how they promoted their businesses? Would public relations executives face prison time for sending out press releases as Cliff Knoble had?

  Moreover, if the prosecutors honestly believed what they told the jury—that Preston Tucker and his associates ran a scheme to steal money—then why weren’t they also prosecuted for tax evasion? If the individuals had profited from the scheme, those proceeds would have been taxable. But it came out at the trial that the men had not misappropriated any of the funds from the company for their personal use. Neither the grand jury nor the prosecutors ever suggested that the tax returns of Tuc
ker and his codefendants were improper. The returns must have been scrutinized; after all, Tucker was prosecuted in the same building where Al Capone had been found guilty of not paying federal taxes on income he had derived through an illegal enterprise.

  Despite the prosecution and attacks, Preston Tucker will get the last word. The cars he built—the fleet of Tucker ’48 sedans and the Tin Goose—have become a lasting reminder of Tucker’s dream. And those cars have, for the most part, outlived Tucker’s critics.

  The Fleet of Tucker ’48 Sedans

  Of the fifty-one Tucker ’48s built, including the Tin Goose, forty-seven survive. The fate of three of the missing sedans is also known. One was #1027, the vehicle that had crashed during road tests at Indianapolis, with Eddie Offutt hanging onto the steering wheel for dear life. Later, it was stripped for parts. Tucker #1018 was severely damaged when it bounced off a bridge abutment and wrapped around a tree near South Wales, New York. It split in half when it was yanked from the tree by an overzealous tow truck driver. And Tucker #1023 burned in a warehouse fire.1 The owner retrieved the remains from the ashes and buried them.

  It is a small enough number for Tucker fans to track and a remarkable testament to the quality of the cars that so many have survived.

  At the auction of the Tucker Corporation assets in October 1950, many of the cars sold for just a little over a thousand dollars if they were missing an engine or a transmission. Complete cars were sold for $2,000 to $3,000—of the dozens of sedans sold, $3,000 was the maximum price. Some buyers bought more than one car, and many also picked up spare parts to complete their cars or just to have spares handy. The Tin Goose was among the cars sold. Tucker employees had replaced the 589-cubic-inch engine and had also installed the more conventional Cord transmission, replacing the fluid drive torque converter system, which had never worked properly. Employees had also replaced the car’s bumpers. When it had been unveiled to the public, the Tin Goose’s front bumper had been created out of wood and made to look like steel.2 Stories surfaced that the car was sold at the auction for $2,500.3

 

‹ Prev