Preston Tucker and His Battle to Build the Car of Tomorrow
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64. “‘Threatened,’” Pittsburgh Press.
65. Knoble, Call to Market, 217–218.
66. “Gulf Official Heard at Tucker Trial,” Pittsburgh Press, December 12, 1949.
67. Ibid.
68. Ibid.
69. Harry A. McDonald, address to the thirty-eighth annual convention of the Investment Bankers Association of America, Hollywood, FL, December 4–9, 1949, transcript available at the US Securities and Exchange Commission official website, www.sec.gov/news/speech/1949/1204-0949mcdonald.pdf, p. 2.
70. Tucker, “My Car Was Too Good,” 72.
71. Scott, “Ordeal by Trial,”448.
72. SEC, Tucker Corporation, 392.
73. Ibid.
74. Ibid., 393.
75. Ibid., 399.
76. Ibid., 401.
77. Scott, “Ordeal by Trial,”448.
78. Pearson, Indomitable Tin Goose, 191.
79. Scott, “Ordeal by Trial,”448.
80. Ibid., 449.
81. Ibid.
82. Pearson, Indomitable Tin Goose, 193–194.
83. Turnbull, deposition, 78–79.
84. Ibid., 84–85.
85. The number of witnesses is given variously as either seventy-two or seventy-three. Tremulis said seventy-two; see Tremulis, “Epitaph,” 58. One newspaper reported the figure as sixty-three: “Tucker, Aides Acquitted in Suit over Dream Car,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 23, 1950.
86. “Trial of Tucker Nears Jury Stage,” Wilmington (NC) Morning Star, January 17, 1950.
87. Scott, “Ordeal by Trial,”449.
88. “Question of Faith,” Time, January 30, 1950, 77.
89. Pearson, Indomitable Tin Goose, 195.
90. Scott, “Ordeal by Trial,”450.
91. “Tucker Cleared of Fraud Charges,” Pittsburgh Press, January 23, 1950.
92. “Tucker, Aides Acquitted,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
93. Egan, Design and Destiny, 113.
94. Knoble, Call to Market, 219.
95. “Question of Faith,” Time, 77.
96. “Tucker, Aides Acquitted,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
97. Scott, “Ordeal by Trial,”450.
98. Harry A. McDonald, “Today at the S.E.C.,” address given at the forty-third annual dinner of the Detroit Stock Exchange, February 21, 1950, transcript available at the US Securities and Exchange Commission official website, www.sec.gov/news/speech/1950/022150mcdonald.pdf, p. 1.
99. Ibid., 9.
100. Tremulis, “Epitaph,” 58.
101. “Preston Tucker in Court Again,” St. Petersburg Times, January 27, 1950.
102. Tucker v. Kerner, 186 F.2d 79 (7th Cir. 1950).
103. The prospectus outlined the process by which shareholders could dissolve the company or merge it, etc. Any major action of that sort required 60 percent of the Class A stock to be voted in favor of the action. That would only require 2,400,000 shares of the Class A. Clearly, someone could have taken over the Tucker Corporation and done anything they wanted with it for a relatively small investment in 1949 or 1950.
104. Fizdale, interview by the author.
105. Kamrowski, interview by the author.
106. Tucker Fordon, interview by the author.
107. Ibid.
25. THE CIVIL SUITS
1. “Tucker Sues Gov’t Employes for Damages,” Schenectady Gazette, March 22, 1950.
2. Tucker, “My Car Was Too Good,” 72.
3. Turnbull, deposition, 17. This statement was made by Tucker’s attorney on the record.
4. Tucker, deposition, 41.
5. Hayden, deposition; Tucker, “My Car Was Too Good,” 71–72.
6. Tucker, “My Car Was Too Good,” 72.
7. Ibid.
8. Hayden, deposition.
9. Turnbull, deposition, 19.
10. Scott, “Ordeal by Trial,”451.
11. “Defendant’s Answer to Plaintiff’s Interrogatories #12,” Regina Hay file, National Archives, Chicago, IL.
12. Scott, “Ordeal by Trial,”451.
13. Tucker v. Kerner, 186 F.2d 79 (7th Cir. 1950). It would appear that the statements of the judge were not made on the record. Otherwise, they would not have been considered hearsay.
14. “Public Auction” notice, flyer, courtesy of the Tucker Automobile Club of America archives.
15. “Report of Sale, in the Matter of Tucker Corporation,” courtesy of Mark Lieberman and John Tucker.
16. Preston Tucker to Earl T. Simoneau, May 1, 1950, courtesy of Sean Tucker.
17. Tucker experts often group the Tucker sedans into three categories: Category 1: finished and built by Tucker at factory. Category 2: cars that were started on the assembly line but finished outside of the factory. Category 3: assembled from parts entirely outside of the factory.
18. Schmidt v. US, 198 F.2d 32 (1952). Strangely, the opinion does not give the appellant’s first name.
19. Ibid.
20. “Kaiser-Frazer Granted Loan by Government,” Prescott (AZ) Evening Courier, December 6, 1950.
21. “Kaiser-Frazer Loan Scored by Senate Unit,” Deseret News, July 19, 1951.
22. Pearson, Indomitable Tin Goose, 220.
23. “SEC Probers Find No Blot on Integrity of McDonald,” Spokane Daily Chronicle, February 15, 1952.
24. “Kaiser-Frazer to Pay on Loan,” Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA), June 25, 1952.
25. “Kaiser-Frazer to Buy Willys in 62 Million Dollar Deal,” Milwaukee Sentinel, March 22, 1953.
26. Tucker, “My Car Was Too Good,” 5.
27. “Answer of Defendant, The Evening News Association, to Plaintiff’s Interrogatories,” in Tucker v. The Evening News, National Archives, Chicago, IL.
28. Affidavit of Harry A. McDonald, April 7, 1952. The document is a single page and is not titled or captioned in any meaningful way. It can be found in the Tucker files at the National Archives, Chicago, IL.
26. PRESTON TUCKER SPEAKS OUT
1. Tucker, “My Car Was Too Good,” 3.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., 7.
4. Ibid., 74.
5. “Report of Nathan Yorke, Trustee of Tucker Corporation,” January 10, 1956, in the matter of Tucker Corporation, N.D. Ill. case no. 48 B 530.
6. Tucker, “My Car Was Too Good,” 74.
7. Tucker, deposition, 858.
8. Ibid., 835–836.
9. Ibid., 876–877.
10. Ibid., 866–867.
11. Ibid, 858.
12. Veenkant v. Yorke, 256 F.2d 808 (1958).
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
27. JOSEPH TURNBULL TESTIFIES AGAIN
1. Turnbull, deposition, 39.
2. Ibid., 26.
3. Ibid., 41.
4. Ibid., 60–61.
5. Ibid., 51.
6. Ibid., 54.
7. Ibid., 58–59.
28. THE LAST DAYS OF PRESTON TUCKER
1. “Count in Suit,” Milwaukee Journal, April 9, 1941.
2. Auto Row Notes, Milwaukee Journal, August 2, 1931; see also “New 1936 Kelvinator” (ad for the Kelvinator), Ottawa Citizen, April 15, 1936.
3. Sakhnoffsky, “Tucker Number Two,” 69.
4. Ibid.
5. Kamrowski, interview by the author.
6. Wallace F. Janssen, “Cancer Quackery: Past and Present,” FDA Consumer, July–August 1977.
7. Tucker, “I Never Gave Up,” 10.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., 12.
10. Ibid., 14–15.
11. Ibid., 58.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Joe Butcko, interview by the author.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Sakhnoffsky, “Tucker Number Two,” 69.
18. Butcko, interview by the author.
19. Tucker Fordon, interview by the author.
20. Kamrowski, interview by the author.
21.
“Inventor of Tucker Car Dies,” Daytona Beach Morning Journal, December 27, 1956.
22. Kamrowski, interview by the author.
23. Ibid.
24. “Preston T. Tucker in Hospital,” New York Times, December 7, 1956.
25. “Preston Tucker, Auto Builder, Dies,” Southeast Missourian, December 27, 1956.
26. Certificate of death for Preston Thomas Tucker, National Archives, Chicago, IL.
27. “Auto Manufacturer Preston Tucker Dies,” Lewiston Daily Sun, December 27, 1956.
28. Lincoln Park Preservation Alliance, Lincoln Park, 58.
29. Scott, “Ordeal by Trial,”9.
30. “Preston Tucker, Car Maker, Dies,” New York Times, December 27, 1956.
31. “Preston Tucker Dies,” Lewiston Daily Sun.
29. THE MOVIE
1. Cowan, “Tucker: The Man, the Myth,” 230.
2. Jill Kearney, “Francis Ford Coppola: His Latest Hero Dreamed of Producing a New Automobile,” Mother Jones, September 1988.
3. Abigail Tucker, “The Tucker Was the 1940s Car of the Future,” Smithsonian, December 2012.
4. Cowan, “Tucker: The Man, the Myth,” 232.
5. Gordinier, “A Lot of Drive.”
6. Cowan, “Tucker: The Man, the Myth,” 232.
7. Kearney, “Francis Ford Coppola.”
8. Cowan, “Tucker: The Man, the Myth,” 231.
9. Gordinier, “A Lot of Drive.”
10. Cowan, “Tucker: The Man, the Myth,” 233.
11. Tucker Fordon, interview by the author.
12. Cowan, “Tucker: The Man, the Myth,” 233.
13. Fizdale, interview by the author.
14. Cowan, “Tucker: The Man, the Myth.” It appears that this would make the total number of authentic Tuckers in the movie to be twenty-four, counting the two belonging to Coppola, but it is unclear; the twenty-two figure may have included his as well.
15. IMDb.com, accessed October 29, 2015, gives the movie’s budget as $23 million, while other sources sometimes say $24 million. See, for instance, Gordinier, “A Lot of Drive.”
16. Cowan, “Tucker: The Man, the Myth,” 231.
17. Kearney, “Francis Ford Coppola.”
18. James Risen, “Uncanny Parallels Noted for DeLorean, Tucker,” Victoria (TX) Advocate, August 14, 1988.
19. Patrick Jasperse, “A Car Collector’s Moment of Glory,” Milwaukee Journal, August 19, 1988.
30. AFTER
1. Knoble, Call to Market, 221–222.
2. “Tremulis: The Genius,” Automobile Quarterly, 256.
3. Ibid., 258.
4. Ibid.
5. Gordinier, “A Lot of Drive.”
6. “Tremulis: The Genius,” Automobile Quarterly, 258.
7. Gordinier, “A Lot of Drive.”
8. “No Room for Dreams,” Toledo Blade.
9. Bergstrom, “Memories Revived.”
10. Fox, “Philip Egan.”
11. The federal appeals court wrote in an opinion that Kerner stepped down as governor specifically to take the judgeship with the Court of Appeals. US v. Isaacs and Kerner et al., 493 F.2d 1124 (7th Cir. 1974).
12. US v. Isaacs and Kerner et al., 493 F.2d 1124 (7th Cir. 1974). Some writers argued later that Kerner’s conviction was inappropriate, because the legal theory upon which part of it was based—“honest services” being the basis for a mail fraud conviction—was overturned later by the Supreme Court. It seems unlikely that all his convictions would have been overturned, however. One count for which Kerner was convicted was his perjury before the grand jury. The striking down or rewriting of the mail fraud statute would have had no effect on Kerner’s culpability for lying under oath.
13. Stephan Benzkofer, “First Illinois Governor to Do Time was Known as ‘Mr. Clean,’” Chicago Tribune, December 11, 2011.
14. Ibid.
15. “Seven Drew Pearson Wills Form Legal Knot in Settling Estate,” Lakeland (FL) Ledger, January 28, 1975.
16. “Death Claims Drew Pearson,” Bulletin (Bend, OR), September 1, 1969.
17. Jim Irwin, “Tucker Museum Idea Seems Stalled,” Toledo Blade, December 29, 1992.
31. THE TUCKER LEGACY
1. Abigail Tucker, “1940s Car of the Future.”
2. Ibid.
3. Philip S. Egan, “The Real Life Tucker; A Dream as Bright as Its Chrome,” New York Times, September 18, 1988.
4. Pearson, Indomitable Tin Goose, 177.
5. Gordinier, “A Lot of Drive.”
32. THE FLEET OF TUCKER ’48 SEDANS
1. Mike Schutta, “Racing Rarity: Identity of the Tucker 48 That Competed in NASCAR Is Finally Revealed,” Hemmings Classic Car, March 2012, www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2012/03/01/hmn_feature1.html.
2. Stan Gilliland, e-mail to Mark Lieberman, December 4, 2013, provided to the author by Lieberman.
3. Miller, “Tucker Torpedo Is Gone.”
4. “No Room for Dreams,” Toledo Blade.
5. Lieberman, interview by the author.
6. Miller, “Tucker Torpedo Is Gone.”
7. Ibid.
8. “The Tucker Prototype Will Be Auctioned for the First Time During Kruse International’s 25th Auburn Auction!,” PR Newswire, July 5, 1995.
9. Lieberman, interview by the author; Pat Swigart, interview by the author, 2015.
10. Swigart, interview by the author.
11. “Lot 140: 1948 Tucker 48,” RM Sotheby’s official website, accessed October 29, 2015, www.rmauctions.com/lots/lot.cfm?lot_id=1067570.
12. “1948 Tucker Torpedo,” Barrett-Jackson Salon Collection official website, accessed October 24, 2013, www.saloncollection.com/2012/1948-tucker-torpedo/ (site discontinued); Jeremy Korzeniewski, “Barrett-Jackson 2012,” Autoblog, January 21, 2012, www.autoblog.com/2012/01/21/barrett-jackson-2012-1948-tucker-torpedo-bid-up-to-over-2-6-mi/.
13. Agnes Nash, “The Car Arrived Before Its Time,” Miami News, May 8, 1960.
14. Lieberman, interview by the author.
15. David LaChance, “David Cammack: Decades of Collecting Have Produced a Tucker Collection That Has No Equal,” Hemmings Classic Car, June 2007, www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2007/06/01/hmn_feature20.html.
16. Ibid. This article indicates that 150 Tucker engines had been produced, but the number was probably 125. Lieberman, interview by the author.
17. Missing from his collection was a Jacobs engine, which had been considered, as well as a high-performance Franklin, which had also been experimented with at the Tucker factory.
18. LaChance, “David Cammack.”
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Daniel Strohl, “Tucker Collector David Cammack Dies,” Hemmings Daily, April 10, 2013, http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2013/04/10/tucker-collector-david-cammack-dies/.
23. LaChance, “David Cammack.”
24. “Tucker Torpedo for Motorclassica,” Next Car, October 20, 2010, www.nextcar.com.au/n.2010.au.101020.motorclassica.html.
25. Schutta, “Racing Rarity.”
26. Daniel Strohl, “Long-Neglected Tucker Exhumed, Headed for Restoration,” Hemmings Daily, February 15, 2011, http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2011/02/15/long-neglected-tucker-exhumed-headed-for-restoration/.
27. “1948 Tucker Model 48,” LeMay Family Collection Foundation official website, accessed October 21, 2015, www.lemaymarymount.org/vehicle.php?vID=729.
28. Paul Duchene, “Unearthed Tucker,” Chicago Tribune, January 27, 2011, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-01-27/classified/sc-cons-0127-autocover-20110127_1_tucker-automobile-club-alex-tremulis-pilot-cars.