Tucker # 1057

[john]

There seems to be quite a bit of controversy regarding Tucker number 1057.
The forum and chat posts recognize and indicate that 1057 was set aside and sent to a different department for, to my best understanding of whats been written in the clubs posts and forums, future development?
My question:
what is truly documented in the Clubs archives as to what was done to 1057 when it was set aside in this special development area?
Respectfully submitted,
JOHN

[Tuckeroo]

What follows is according to a list I received dated July 1972 citing information on what was then known about the whereabouts of Tuckers listed by serial number. I am eliminating the names of the people involved in the transaction, for the sake of their confidentiality. Also the authorship of this document is unknown to me, however, it reads the following:

"At the time of the factory auction [name 1 omitted] purchased 9 incomplete Tuckers, 3 bodies and other parts. He later sold 2 unfinished Tuckers and the 3 bodies and parts to [name 2 omitted]. [Name 2 omitted] later sold these to [name 3 omitted]. [Name 3 omitted] recently sold a body to [name 4 omitted]."

What follows is more pertinent to your question:

"According to the records there were 58 bodies completed when the plant closed. Body No. 57 was being worked on by Alex Tremulis in styling and had a wrap around back glass and some modifications to the front fenders."

[john]

Tuckeroo,
Thank you for the prompt reply.
You indicate that being more pertinent to my question,information is from records, Is there any way to get a copy of this document regarding 1057 you reference that I would assume you gained your information from.
Are these letterhead Tucker in House reference records or from records minutes kept from Corp meetings?

If I am correct in my research, you are referencing, in your reply, some of the Tucker serial numbered bodies 51 thru 58 that were once in Illinois, E. S. cars?

To my best grasp of the current known knowledge available, roughly about 1/5th of the Serial numbered bodied Tuckers sold at the 1950's auction were sold as incomplete with some having no engines and many other parts missing,are these referenced in your reply as omitted, please correct me if I have been mislead with information.

In referencing the above serial numbered bodied Tuckers, are there any pictures or documents available in the records you referenced that document what eack looked like at the time of the 1950 auction or roughly in the era of 1970?

Do the records you reference in your reply indicate that 1057 was possibly taken out of house and worked on where other, lets say, prototype Tuckers were developed and built in secret with a Tucker 5 star badge needed to gain any access and sight whatsoever?

In furthering, do the aforesaid mentioned records in your reply bring forth any other serial numbered bodied Tuckers that may have recieved a special back window or special fender treatment?

Please do not be alarmed by my questions, I am just trying to clarify some more History that is unbenounced at this time for the Tucker enthusiast's around the world.
Respectfully submitted,
JOHN

[Tuckeroo]

Dear John,
Where to begin!
The document is mainly a list of owners as of 1972 and is therefore not a corporate document. It is probably compiled from multiple sources, perhaps early Tucker enthusiasts before the club was formed. At any rate, there is nothing in the document about #1057 that I didn't state in my previous reply, so I'm sorry to say there is nothing more to be learned with regard to the list. I will concede that you may substitute initials E.S. for name 1 in my previous reply.
I do not remember the exact number of complete and/or incomplete cars sold at the factory liquidation, or even if such a distinction could have been or was made between "incomplete" and "complete" cars, but there was a stated number in a press release regarding the auction. I have a theory that numbers 1048 and 1050 may have been complete except for transmissions (perhaps therefore 1049 as well), but that is only a theory based on the article in Collectible Automobile (July 1985) which mentions 1050 lacked a transmission in restoration and had less than 1 mile on the odometer, and that 1048 oddly enough used a Borg-Warner 3-speed (which since 1985 has been replaced with a Cord transmission from what I understand). Other than that I fully expect all the cars (0-1050) to have been "complete." We know 1051 not to have been completed until the late 80s, so one might assume that any body stampings exceeding that number were not made into complete cars. I personally do not have any photographs that might show what ultimately happened to "incomplete" Tuckers, nor do I know of any. I apologize however robust my information may have seemed, I'm afraid it is not, more derived from memory and theory in this case.

[plancor 792]

Why do people always try to read into a message something that is not present in that message? As has been stated many times before, those "bodies" were just that. They were incomplete bodies without doors, hoods, engine covers or trunk lids, fenders and so forth. That includes no interiors, no wiring and no suspension. As I recall they also did not have frames. They were incomplete bodies. Tucker Serial Number 1050 was no where near complete when it was sold at the auction. It sold with mismatched front and rear seats and was never put into running condition or completed until around 2007. A incomplete body is a body shell nothing more. Ezra Schlipf purchased these at auction and they sat in the field in illinois until they were nothing more than rust. How anyone can consider these bodies as automobiles is inconceivable to me. Body 55 was purchased from Ezra in the 70's and was taken to Kansas where the owner had it sitting out back of his business and later a tree fell on it. I am told there are still parts of it floating around with several persons making claim as to building it into a Tucker. From what I know the rest of those bodies were more rust than bodies and the Kansas man got what was the best of what was there.
Body 57 was not an incomplete car. It was an unfinished body shell. Tucker 1050 was the last unfinished Tucker that was sold at the auction. It had zero miles on the speedometer and in that condition was incompable of being driven. The speedometer was not even hooked up and doubtful that the instruments were even installed when it sold at the auction.

Richard

[plancor 792]

Body 54 was purchased by the Poll Museum in Zeeland, MI and for many years they attempted to build it into a Tucker. They finally gave up and sold it to a person in New Jersey who completed it with fiber-glass or plastic parts. Poll also purchased the engine #33584 that had been in Tucker Serial Number 1027 when it rolled during testing at Indy. Contrary to what the current owner claims, his car was not in the Tucker movie however it was in Richmond, CA for the making of the movie and never left the staging area.

Richard

[plancor 792]

The current owner of what was body 54 now calls his vehicle Tucker 1051.

Richard

[Tuckeroo]

Thank you, Richard, I was hoping to hear from you on this. I believe this is part of why we have the forum, to help clear-up misunderstandings - I alone am not above making mistakes, if one will allow me to. That having been said, I would like to make sure that I am correct in thinking that when "body shells" are referred to, it means the roof of what would have been a car, rear window opening and c-pillars with the small trapezoid window openings in addition to a-pillar and b-pillar door-posts, and front and rear "bulkheads." No frames at all? But with no paint, I can't imagine they lasted too long in the weather. Also sounds like car #1050 can hardly be considered the last car "completed" before the factory closed, even if it was the highest serial number sold - does that honor then go to #1049?

[john]

Richard and Tuckeroo,
Truly good replies and Tuckeroo, your right, its the enthusiast and authorities posts and replies that makes this Club and others great. Shared thoughts and working together always seems to be the best policy.

We too make mistakes, everybody does and we hope that if we error in our postings, someone will correct us for all to learn, thats what a Club is all about!

We also get confused to what constitutes a body shell, frame, serial numbers and authenticating.
We would like to share this, there seems to be a general rule that collectors and Clubs use.

I have been in the Shelby American Auto Club for 20 years, handled many Shelbys over the years, but not limited to just that brand. SAAC has very strick rules in documenting cars and authenticating them.
Ferrari, Jaguar, Rolls Royce and the Dodge Clubs follow suit or vice versa and have excellent recorded history.
The Histories of all cars are printed in books which they sell & the records are housed for updating whenever one sells or a lost one turns up, records are updated or corrected.

It's funny but sometimes 2 cars show up with the same serial number, have seen this many times, point, one guy gets a body with a serial # and another guy has the original chassis and motor, which is the car?
Latest court case, the chassis with the motor, trans and rear end won out.
This happens a lot gentleman, real sad actually.
I personally watched with enthusiasism as a vey important early race Ferrari TR became two cars this way, I do know this because I rescued a car from the same group of significant cars that were burned rusty incomplete hulks, but they were real in all regards.

Reflecting back to the Tucker.
The general rules that the above have set as standards;
Irregardless of condition by being burned, rusty, body incomplete, no drive components etc, if the serial number is stamped on the framing from the factory, it is a real car and recognized as such.If it still retains some of the body parts, that is just that much better for authenticating it and avoiding issues mentioned herein,

That also brings us back to why they have histories in the books, it stops fraud and gives a possible new owner opportunity to be reassured in a purchase in knowing everything about the automobiles life and history.

A tucker body was welded onto the frame for the most part and it almost becomes what one would call a unibody affair, please correct if we are wrong.

We all have seen bare Tucker chassis, seems most had the cowls grafted on with other parts of the car being the same.

The point, a body really would not be a body without the frame, it would be for the most part, just parts laying there, we would assume and concede though, that it is possible one could have a roof, qrts, rear & front bulk heads, but is this real likely with no attachments to a frame?
It seems with no base, floor or frame, would it in all probability, just fall apart?

Here is a good question that needs answer to possibly resolve the issue;
were the panels of the body, on the Tucker factory line, welded on as it moved down the line so it would become a car?

All the best this evening,
John

[plancor 792]

Sorry to say I do not know the exact date the plant shut down. I do know that on 11-2-48 cars through Serial Number 1035 were complete and cars 1036 through 1042 were being held in Engineering for Transmissions.
After the plant closed Eddie Offutt and others continued to work putting the vehicles together till they ran out of parts. You will find that many of the cars after Serial Number 1034 had the Cord transmissions installed as there were no more Y-1's available. Records available indicated that Serial Numbers 1038, 1041, 1043, 1044, and 1047 were completed with Cord transmissions. Others could have been. We also believe that Serial Number 1042 had an automatic transmission and Serial Number 1048 had a Borg Warner transmission. Was surprised to recently see that Tucker Corporation did a great deal of research into the Borg Warner transmission and also the 0-360 Jacobs Liquid Cooled Engine.

Richard

[plancor 792]

A body number was stamped into the body as it was assembled. Usually you will find this stamping close to where the Data Plate was put on. Also have noted that many times the body number corresponding to the one stamped into the body is sometimes also on the fenders or other parts of the body. Just because a car had a body number did not give it the same Serial Number when the data plate was put on. Many did have the same Serial No and Body No. However as an example my Tucker Serial Number 1023 had 8 stamped next to the Data Plate and on the Data Plate it was Body No 1008. it is my opinion that a body becomes an automobile is when it is assigned a serial number and not a body number.

Richard

[Tuckeroo]

That's neat. I had first read about the Jacobs 360cid engine in Consumer Guide's Great Cars of the 20th Century, which says it's development was dropped because it simply wouldn't fit in the engine bay. According to Milestone Car (Spring 1975), Ben Parsons proposed a 339cid engine, but it looks like that project was canceled before any were built. I think to Alex Tremulis goes the credit for designing the car with the foresight that the 589cid engine would have make way for a slightly more conventional drivetrain upon further development. Thanks for the additional info!

[Tuckeroo]

Sorry to add to the confusion, but I checked the original data plate (which is not the one currently in the car) for serial number 1026. It appears to say serial no. 1026, body no. 1024, and yet all the body stampings I located say "26." Unless I read something wrong (and I checked and double-checked), I would say there is some lack of consistency, but don't believe that would imply anything other than the order in which bodies were stamped is not always the same order in which the cars came off the assembly line, if that can even be ascertained from the information we have.

[plancor 792]

Tuckerroo,
Tucker Serial Number 1026 was at one time owned by Nick jenin of Fort lauderdale, FL. Nick told me that he did change some of the data plates on the cars he owned. Cars originally had the data plate rivited to the "firewall" and when Nick changed them they were then held in place with screws. You are correct that Serial Number 1026 has 26 stamped in several places. Tucker Serial Number 1022 has body 1024 and according to the data plate on Serial Number 1026 it has body 26. Due to changes in the frame and other places I would believe that Serial Number 1026 has body no 1026. Remember that gas tank location was changed also gas filler was moved to the left front fender and several other changes were made at Body Number 26. Also remember that blank data plates are available and I like many others have the exact size numbers to make a data plate with any combination of numbers I wish to put on it. I do have a couple of those data plates.

Richard

[plancor 792]

That Milestone Car Society article on Tucker's Engines is one I wrote. That information was also published in the TACA's Tucker Topics when I was the Editor.
Richard