George Dubinetz

[thelookahead]

I was wondering if anyone was familiar with George Dubinetz. He was said to have worked with Preston Tucker on the design of "the Tucker" while working for Cowles & Co in Chicago. Any info on Dubinetz or Cowles & Co would be greatly appreciated.

[dubinetz]

George Dubinetz was my father....he often spoke about his days with Tucker. I would be happy to tell you more. My name is Ann Dubinetz.

[Larry Clark]

Ann- I encourage you to share background about your father with all of us. His early role with Preston Tucker and the company should be better known and understood. Larry

[dubinetz]

Dear Larry and Everyone at Tucker Club,

I have so much to tell you about my father, George Dubinetz. On the otherhand, all of you have so much to teach me about Tucker History.

To begin with, I learned a great deal about my father's past when the film TUCKER came out. It's interesting, because many years later I financed the Jeff Bridge's film, AMERICAN HEART, the only film for which he won a Best Actor Award. My reason for doing this was because of Bridge's performance in TUCKER.

When the film was released, I was shocked when my father told me..that in a scene at the Chicago Auto Show...when everything went wrong and the design engineers were "behind the curtain", he told me that he was one of those designers. When I learned this, many conversations with my father began about Tucker...the man and the company.

To begin with, he told me that Bridge's performance as the "Great American Hero" was completely false. If I recall correctly, he said that he had the Tucker license for the Midwest...that if the automobile had taken off, he would have owned all dealerships in the Midwest area...or at least in the Chicagoland area.

Before I continue with the story, I would love to know what YOU know about all this????

[Larry Clark]

Ann: I understand why your father could have been very disenchanted with Preston Tucker. Distributors and dealers all lost money from the purchase of their distributorship and/or dealership. Dealers (and distributors) were required to commit to a level of capital investments linked to their agreed quota of cars to be received in the first two years. This cost money. Later many purchased suitcases, etc. to be used to sell to consumers to establish priority rights to cars from the dealership. While the company told dealers they'd make money- many ended up with extensive inventories of unsold stuff (which we today treasure when such items are listed on eBay). Finally, after the company went in to bankruptcy and all was over they got pursued by the bankruptcy trustee to complete any outstanding payment(s) yet owed to the company. Ouch. Distributors were in an awful position of trying to keep their dealers happy when the company kept missing one promised date after another as to when production would begin. The dream sold by Preston Tucker became a financial nightmare for many, if not most of the dealers. As with a losing baseball team, there was strong sentiment by many to change the leadership, build the car. While I believe Preston Tucker was a great visionary of what the car could and should be, he certainly was not a good busines person. For most distributors and dealers the relationship to the Tucker car was primarily about business (the expectation of making money).

I have done a great deal of research on the Tucker Company over the past 30 years. In doing so, I have read hundreds of old company records and files,including some listing and/or mentioning your father's name. However, much about the company is not to be found in known surviving records. Unfortunately, this seems to be true concerning the potentially extensive role your father had with the company and the development of the car. Given that only a few key persons of the Tucker Company are yet alive from the era, there are few opportunities otherwise to gain primary knowledge of persons and events. We are now mostly dependent upon the next generation of family members who may have personal knowledge from stories told or possibly even old records. This many years later, sometimes exact details may be off but more often than not themes of impressions can and do carry validity. I would love to learn your father's role from what you know to be able to in turn help the Tucker Club have better documentation of the history of key persons, the car and the company. I welcome your contact: clarkl@uncw.edu.

Larry