Remember the movie "Tucker"? It's about a visionary man reinventing the car and coming up with something quite revolutionary considering the year 1948. The story behind the movie actually is quite true. Tucker existed and the (prototype) cars as well. Not only was these car more aerodynamically shaped than almost anything else, it also had a few engineering ideas incorporated that made it special, i.e. a small helicopter engine taking much less space in the back than the usual 6 or 8 cylinder engines and leaving a lot of boot space in the front. But the car had also a few problems, including not being able to reverse. And the development was funded by people putting a deposit. And these people, and there were some even in Switzerland, never got their car, but the deposit of course had gone. The illustration here is an actual ad for the car in a car catalogue in 1948. It really looked good!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Tucker - the untold stories
Remember the movie "Tucker"? It's about a visionary man reinventing the car and coming up with something quite revolutionary considering the year 1948. The story behind the movie actually is quite true. Tucker existed and the (prototype) cars as well. Not only was these car more aerodynamically shaped than almost anything else, it also had a few engineering ideas incorporated that made it special, i.e. a small helicopter engine taking much less space in the back than the usual 6 or 8 cylinder engines and leaving a lot of boot space in the front. But the car had also a few problems, including not being able to reverse. And the development was funded by people putting a deposit. And these people, and there were some even in Switzerland, never got their car, but the deposit of course had gone. The illustration here is an actual ad for the car in a car catalogue in 1948. It really looked good!
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The Tucker movie for simplicity melded the character of Alex Tremulis, a stylist only, into the one of the chief engineer, whose son I later worked with at Ford in Dearborn. Not recalling his name, the son was in charge of the Naples Florida test track, but was killed
in a traffic accident. I should have spent more time learning about the Tucker from him, but there were two versions of transmission tested, and the one in the 43 sold cars did have reverse. It was I believe a Cord 810 transaxle, and not the hydrostatic drive envisioned earlier. As a European you must surely have noted the similarities to Hans Ludwinka's Tatraplan 77, including the multicylinder rear engine and fastback unit bodyshell with the third headlight.
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