by Steve Lehto
The Tin Goose changed hands a few times and ended up in a field behind a barn in Pennsylvania. Les Schaeffer owned it, along with the front half of the crashed #1018. Its other half was missing and was probably scrapped, but the Tin Goose was mostly intact. Photos taken of the car around 1971 show it sitting on blocks, missing both bumpers, surrounded by weeds and dirt.
Then John Lemmo, former director of operations for the Cleveland Browns, bought the Tin Goose from Schaeffer. Lemmo already had a Tucker but was more interested in the prototype.4 He rescued it from the field and restored it, painting it bright red, although the car had originally been maroon. He installed a production steel bumper on the front and an aluminum rear bumper that had been cast using a production bumper as a model. As a result, the car today looks only a little different than when it was unveiled in 1947.5
Lemmo brought the car to a gathering of Tucker fans in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1984. Alex Tremulis was there to see his creation after all those years. He commented to Lemmo about how much lead had been used to sculpt the car and asked him if he had ever weighed the car; Lemmo hadn’t.6 Tremulis used the occasion to comment on the sorry state of automotive design, remarking on the ugliness of cars in 1984. He said the Big Three were “torturing innocent sheet metal.”7
Lemmo took the Tin Goose to the Kruse International automobile auction in Auburn, Indiana, for their twenty-fifth annual Labor Day auction of collector cars in 1995.8 There, it was bought by the Swigart Museum, America’s oldest car museum. Its antique automobile collection in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, started as the private collection of W. Emmert Swigart, an insurance salesman fascinated by cars when they were still a new invention. He began collecting and preserving early cars and passed the collection to his son. Over time, the cars numbered in the hundreds and included many one-of-a-kind automobiles. But the collection did not contain a Tucker, so Swigart bought two at the Kruse auction that day: the Tin Goose and #1013.9 Although the Swigart Museum occasionally takes #1013 to car shows, it is almost always displayed next to the Tin Goose, which is always on display. The museum has an unwritten rule that while some cars rotate in and out of displays, the Tuckers don’t.10
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Many other Tucker sedans reside in museums, living the good life indoors, protected by velvet ropes and regularly polished. Tucker #1039, for example, currently resides in the Smithsonian Institution, safe and sound. Surprisingly, it has a criminal record. The silver sedan changed hands a few times after leaving the factory. In the early 1990s it was owned by an entrepreneur in Southern California. That man’s business generated a lot of cash, and he invested some in the rare car. The cash flow was—according to federal agents—the product of a meth lab operation. Drug Enforcement Administration officers swooped in and shut down the business and seized the operator’s assets, including Tucker #1039. It was 1992 and Tucker prices were climbing. The seizure of the unusual car made the news, and soon members of the Tucker Automobile Club of America were on high alert.
As part of a plea agreement, the defendant surrendered the Tucker to the government. Most nonliquid assets of criminal enterprises subject to seizure are slated for public auction, and Tucker #1039 was no exception. TACA members worried. What if the vehicle was sold to someone outside the United States? One Tucker had recently been sold to a car company in Japan, where it today sits in a museum, thousands of miles and an ocean away from its home. Might there be a way to keep Tucker #1039 in the country?
TACA asked its members to petition the White House, asking the DEA to donate the car to a museum. TACA offered to assume liability for the car’s maintenance. Or, they suggested, the car could be given to the Smithsonian Institution, which did not yet own a Tucker. The DEA agreed to donate the car to the institution, which took possession of Tucker #1039 in 1993. The car is not always shown; the holdings of the Smithsonian are too large for everything to be on display. But from time to time, #1039 is available for visitors to see at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.
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Most Tuckers, once they are acquired by museums, stay put. Such was not the case with Tucker #1036, which made a brief, well-publicized escape attempt from a Louisiana museum.
Detroit real estate mogul Bernard Glieberman bought and sold football teams as well as property. He and his son Lonie had bought the Ottawa Rough Riders of the Canadian Football League in 1991, but had since fallen out with the league—and much of Canada—when the team didn’t live up to expectations. The Gliebermans’ purchase price had been a dollar, which wasn’t as good a deal as one might think. Along with a team that hadn’t seen a winning season in over a decade, Glieberman acquired about a million dollars of debt. The elder Glieberman let his son run the team, and various personnel decisions soon caused them and the team to lose favor with what few fans the Rough Riders had left in Ottawa. So they sought to move the team to the United States, but the CFL blocked the move.
A compromise was struck: The CFL had decided to set up franchises in the United States, much as Major League Baseball has teams in both countries. Might the Gliebermans be interested in a CFL franchise in Shreveport, Louisiana? The Gliebermans sold their share of the Ottawa team and began setting up shop for the CFL’s new Shreveport Pirates. While in Shreveport, Glieberman, who had bought #1036, loaned the car to the Ark-La-Tex Antique & Classic Vehicle Museum. When the car had left the Tucker plant in Chicago, it had been painted “Andante” green. By the time it got to the museum, it had been repainted copper. Although it had only been driven a few thousand miles since it had been built, it was badly in need of a professional restoration. At this point, Tucker #1036 was already too valuable to be driven all that often.
The Shreveport Pirates did not play well. In their first season at Shreveport’s Independence Stadium, they won only three games to offset fifteen losses. They went 5–13 the next year. Grumbling in town led the Gliebermans to look for a more hospitable place to play. They investigated moving the team to Norfolk, Virginia. But Shreveport officials were worried about some unfinished business. Unresolved issues over rent and use of the stadium led to a lawsuit. As the two sides squabbled, Bernard Glieberman suddenly realized he had a vulnerability: his Tucker was in Shreveport, and it was worth a lot of money. Would it get dragged into the litigation? Just to be safe—although details of this event are sketchy—Glieberman’s attorney went to the museum and asked for the keys. The car was, after all, owned by Glieberman. The attorney got in the car and headed out of town, hoping to get the car away from Shreveport’s legal clutches.
Tuckers are known for their speed, but one thing they need, not surprisingly, is gasoline. The attorney, in his haste to get out of town, didn’t notice that the Tucker’s gas gauge was on empty. Right outside of town, the car sputtered to a stop. The attorney coasted to the side of the road and wondered what to do next. A minute later, a friendly police officer stopped to see what was the matter with the stalled car. It’s not every day a police officer gets to see a Tucker on the side of the road.
The Tucker was brought back to the museum. Shreveport officials ran to court and asked the judge to impound the vehicle in case it was needed later to satisfy a judgment against the Gliebermans. The judge agreed that the Tucker was a flight risk and placed the car under house arrest at the museum. A large sticker on the windshield warned: UNITED STATES MARSHAL. NO TRESPASSING.
The Gliebermans resolved their legal issues with Shreveport, and shortly after, the CFL decided that Americans weren’t interested enough in their version of football to maintain teams south of the border. The sticker on Tucker #1036’s window was removed and the car was released.
The car turned up again in 2014 when it was auctioned during the Pebble Beach car show, the Concours d’Elegance. The winning bid was $1.425 million, which, with the buyer’s premium, means the new owner paid $1,567,500 to acquire it.11 Other Tucker ’48s have sold for much more. In 2012 a well-restored Tucker ’48 was auctioned for $2.7 million by Barrett-Jackson. W
ith the buyer’s premium, the total purchase price was $2.9 million. That sedan was blue, #1043.12
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Nick Jenin, a hotel operator in Florida, began collecting Tuckers in 1952, and by 1960 he owned ten. Jenin had gotten to know Tucker and simply loved the cars. He often took them to auto shows and charged admission to see “the Fabulous Tuckers.” He told a reporter he paid between $3,500 and $6,500 for each of the cars. He drove one to New York City from Florida specifically to show it to reporters attending the International Auto Show at the New York Coliseum. On the drive north, a Florida state trooper pulled him over on the turnpike and asked if he could examine the car. When he realized he wasn’t getting a ticket, Jenin obliged. Jenin said he stopped driving the cars because they caused a ruckus everywhere he went. More than a decade after the demise of the Tucker Corporation, people still knew the cars and what they stood for.13
Jenin decided to give one of the Tuckers to his daughter for daily driving. Knowing the idiosyncrasies of the car, he decided it would be best if the car—#1046—had a conventional drivetrain. He removed the Tucker engine and transmission and placed the car on an Oldsmobile chassis with an Oldsmobile drivetrain. His daughter drove the car once and told her father that the car drew too much attention for her to use it. So Jenin sold the car to a Mercury dealer. The new owner could not have his Tucker powered by Oldsmobile; he moved the car onto a Mercury chassis and drove it that way for a while. The car changed hands a couple times and eventually ended up with another collector, who painstakingly restored it to its original configuration with all Tucker parts and a Tucker drivetrain.14
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Perhaps the most important person in the field of maintaining the Tucker legacy was a Virginia real estate investor named David Cammack. Cammack had seen the Tin Goose display at the Mayflower Hotel when Tucker toured the country. He was just a teenager, but he remembered in later years that the place was packed. He had hoped to see the infamous 589-cubic-inch engine, but the trunk wasn’t open when he was there. Shortly after, the SEC investigation hit the news and Cammack, like many other Americans, lost interest in the car.15
In 1972 Cammack heard that a museum in New York was selling two Tuckers. By the time he called, one had already been sold. He bought the other, #1022. Cammack embarked on a fourteen-year restoration of the car. In the meantime, #1001 became available. He added that to his collection in 1973. In 1974 another Tucker called to him, and #1026 soon joined the others. Each car needed restoration, including new engines. Luckily, while Tucker had only ordered body panels for about fifty cars, he had obtained more than a hundred engines for his endeavor. Cammack had no problem locating new ones for his cars, although he spent quite a bit of time wheeling and dealing for them.16
When Cammack bought #1026, its previous owner also owned a Tucker test chassis and asked Cammack if he would like to add it to his collection. Soon Cammack was buying everything Tucker-related he could find. He eventually had an almost complete collection of the various engine configurations the Tucker Corporation had experimented with before settling on the Aircooled.17 He displayed the nine engines on stands in his warehouse turned private museum in Virginia. Word got out that he was buying Tucker materials, and soon someone called with the ultimate find: fifty thousand blueprints and engineering drawings for the Tucker sedan and all of its components. They had been sold at the factory liquidation auction for $2,000, and the owner said he wanted the outrageous sum of $10 million for them. Cammack declined the offer.18
A few years later, the man with the blueprints passed away without selling them. His family, cleaning out his belongings, loaded up the blueprints and other papers and took them to the dump. The dump refused them, presumably because paper needed to be processed elsewhere. Someone in the family then wondered if the Tucker Automobile Club might be willing to help them dispose of the paper. Word soon got back to Cammack and he worked out “a much more reasonable price” for the drawings.19
Cammack’s collection eventually included three beautifully restored Tucker sedans; #1026 is the only surviving Tucker with an automatic transmission—the Tuckermatic. Amazingly, Cammack never drove his cars, even though each was perfectly drivable. “I would have liked to have driven them, but after 14 years of restoration, I’ve lost my enthusiasm for driving them. I don’t care to work on them. I’m getting too old to crawl up and down, cleaning them up.” Cammack was notoriously generous with his collection, however. He kept a listed phone number and showed off his collection to anyone who asked. Tucker fans from around the globe appeared at his doorstep and were given personal tours by Cammack himself.20
People who spoke with Cammack were also intrigued to see that his own views on Tucker had changed over time. After hearing about the Tucker fraud allegations and losing interest in the automaker and his cars, he had bought his first Tucker simply as an investment. There were only so many around that they had to increase in value. But after he acquired his collection, he realized something: the remains of the Tucker Corporation were more than what would have been created by a fraudster, particularly the fifty thousand blueprints and engineering drawings. “I don’t think there was any doubt that he was serious about building a car. I think all these drawings prove that. I think Tucker was absolutely honest. He was trying to do too much at one time. Everything was new,” Cammack told a writer for Hemmings Classic Car.21
David Cammack passed away in April 2013 at the age of eighty-five. His will stipulated that his entire Tucker collection would go to the Antique Automobile Club of America, to be housed in their museum in Hershey, Pennsylvania.22 There, a room had already been built to display the collection, paid for by a donation from Bill Cammack, Dave’s brother.23
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As mentioned, a few Tuckers have left the country. In August 2010 an Australian businessman bought #1045 in the United States for $1,140,000. He took the car to Australia, where he reportedly had to install emergency flashers on it to make it street legal.24
Tucker #1004 went to Japan, but not before it had an exciting life in the United States. First, it was one of the cars sold to dealers before the company went bankrupt. Pittsburgh Tucker Sales bought it in June 1948, and it was then purchased by a car dealer named Red Harris. It wound up in the possession of a man named Joe Merola, a twenty-four-year-old who wanted to try stock car racing. Merola found a local sponsor, painted the number 12 on the side, and entered a few races. The Tucker did not fare well, breaking down mechanically each time Merola raced. The culprit was a rear axle that kept breaking, traceable to the Aircooled motor developing too much torque. Merola retired from racing, never having won any races, and sold the car. Its next owner, Wayne Weaver, was a dealer in Clarion, Pennsylvania; he sold #1004 for $2,250 in 1963. The new owner kept the car for more than twelve years, mostly in a barn. While it was there, someone stole the battery and the radiator. In 1976 the owner decided to have the car restored. It was finished in 1978, and in 1988 #1004 appeared in the film Tucker: The Man and His Dream. The owner of the car died and his son sold the car a few years later to a business in Las Vegas. They, in turn, sold it to the Toyota Automobile Museum in Japan.25
Tucker #1035 spent a couple decades forgotten in a barn in Sao Paolo, Brazil. No one really knows how, but #1035 found its way to Brazil very early. While some thought it must have ended up there as part of Preston Tucker’s efforts to promote his Carioca auto design in the mid-1950s, all sources indicate the car was already there before Tucker first visited the country. A man named Roberto Eduardo Lee had bought it for a collection of cars he had on display. In 1975 he died, and his personal museum was closed while his heirs fought over the one hundred cars Lee had left behind. During that time, thieves and vandals broke in. The Tucker was not stolen, but it was damaged. In 2011 the local government reached a deal with the heirs to retrieve the cars and put them back on display. This Tucker needs more than just a little work to get it back into proper form. Not only did it sit neglected for decades, but someone swapped
out much of the car’s drivetrain and chassis with that of a 1947 Cadillac. Members of TACA have offered their assistance and assure Tucker fans that the car can be restored to its original glory.26
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Tucker #1007 is a typical museum Tucker. Sold first to Aircooled Motors for testing purposes, its engine was replaced, suggesting that the original engine may have been pushed to its mechanical limits. During the bankruptcy, the court declared the car an asset of the Tucker Corporation—which owned Aircooled—and the car was part of the liquidation auction on October 20, 1950. In 1953 Nick Jenin bought it and added it to his collection of Fabulous Tuckers. Jenin sold it in 1964 to a man in Texas who spent fifteen years restoring it. A few years later, he placed it in an auction, where it sold for a then-record price of $255,000. In 2001 the Petersen Automotive Museum bought a collection of cars that included this Tucker, but since they already had one, they turned around and sold it shortly after. The LeMay family bought it and placed it in the collection they keep in Tacoma, Washington.27