wondering?

[tuckerfan1941]

You know I am wondering about something.
It occours to me that there may have been more forces at work against Tucker than meets the eye.
There appears to be no record or trace of what became of the dies & other items to build Tuckers that were present when the operation closed down.
Considering that at the worst of the depression, car makers that folded had someone willing to buy the dies & asscoiated material to try to continue to produce the newly defunct cars -- Cord to Hupp & Grahm comes to mind, Essex to Hudson & I'm a sure there were others. Granted most of these "rescue" plans failed , after all it WAS the worst finanicial crisis to date at the time .
When the Tucker factory shut down it was at a time of economic growth that was somewhat booming , the trial cleared Tucker AND the car was shown to be at least viable ---- if not great.
It would seem that some one would have tried to grab up the "bones" at bargin basement steals & try to revive it --- there was still a STRONG demand for cars--- & it would seem for MORE than rehashed 1941 models which only a few makers offered anything more than that --- Hudson & Stude to name a couple, the BIG 3 had nothing new till 1949 --- so 1950 should still have offered an opening.
Is it possible that perhaps the "bones" were bought up by "agents" working for the "industry" & then disposed of?

[tuckerfan1941]

I am assuming that the Dies WERE owned by Tucker even tho the stampings were made by outside vendors.

[Phantomrig]

I have wondered this same question myself. I would think that anybody that purchased the dies would have realized that they were worth more as dies than as scrap.

[NailheadRocketman]

you would think that anyone with common sense would see the value of the dies...however, corporations have deeply lined pockets. They can do anything pointless and wrong if they think that it will suit their needs.just look at GM in the 1960s, when Ralph Nader got on their case about the Corvair (about which he was only partly right) GM spent millions of dollars putting on an investigation into Nader and even slandered him publicly with different insults surrounding his beliefs and even his sexual orientation. Just think, all of this being orchestrated by a little car company? Cars and politics always seem to mix in the worst of ways. I wouldn't put it past an "agent of the industry" to buy the dies and dispose of them. it may seem like a real waste, It's almost like a real estate developer who pays top dollar for an old house or a shopping mall and then tears down what exists on the property and pointlessly builds something more befitting to their own interests. People will do whatever it takes to make a profit and to push along "progress". Sweeping the Tucker car under the rug was one of those pointless things that the big three felt they needed to do in order to compete in a postwar economy. It doesn't even make sense to me since the Tucker went out of the factory missing many of the promised features due to finances and time constraints. It was a revolutionary car, but i don't think it was a real "threat" to anyone's business. Americans still loved elephantine front engine cars with traditional styling, so if anything, the Tucker would have been like any other car on the market (except somewhat better). Whatever goes around comes around. GM is now Government motors and they've shed so much weight, they're now only a fraction of the size that they were in the postwar years. If anyone needs any more evidence of the pointless destruction orchestrated by big auto, look no further than the rapid transit scandal of the 1930-50s. Here in Minnesota, we had a well established system of light rail transportation. A crook by the name of Charles Green, bought up most of the shares of TCRT and made deals with General Motors so that they could push sales of their buses, which would end up replacing all of the electric rail service in the twin cities. All remaining streetcar lines were tore up and most of the railcars were taken away, scrapped and burned. These actions formed the very beginnings of what we know today in MN as Metro Transit.

[tuckerfan1941]

Don't forget the Tire industry involvement in the transit scandle -- If I remember what I have read about that whole deal it was Firestone.

[Tuckerfan1053]

A couple of things to remember, though is that Tucker didn't have a proven sales record when the assets were sold off, so it's not like a company could say, "Hey! If we buy the Tucker dies we'll be able to increase our sales!". Next you have the fact that the government was allowing GM to engage in anti-competitive practices which would result in most of the independent car makers going out of business before 1960. Finally, it would mean that the car makers would have to admit that Tucker was right about safety, something they were clearly unwilling to do.

If you want some interesting reading, go over to books.google.com and search for Popular Mechanics and Popular Science articles written about the dawn of crash testing. Nobody had a clear idea of how to build a safe car, and the test results were disturbing because of how poorly the cars performed. Those of you familiar with the first year Ford Thunderbirds will no doubt remember that they had reverse opening hoods. The reason why they had them is rather telling about automotive engineering of the era. They didn't bother to do any calculations on the aerodynamic forces on the front of the car, so the hood latch was too weak and as you drove down the road, it would fly open. Ford didn't have time to come up with a new latch in time for production, so they simply made the hoods reverse opening, so that air pressure would hold the hoods closed.

If the car makers had been forward looking enough to realize that Tucker was right when it came to things like safety and bought everything up at auction, there would have been no reason for Tucker to have built his car to begin with, since everything that his car had, would have already been on the market.

[Prototype]

The stamping dies did not belong to Tucker. They were owned by the companies who were contracted by Tucker to make the original 60 pilot bodies(though this number has been hotly debated here for years, it was in fact 60). Since the dies were made of Kirksite (now called Zamak 2) which is an alloy of Aluminum, zinc and Magnesium with a low melting and casting temperature. This material, when shaped and polished by skilled tool & die makers(then) and CNC machines (now) produces very high quality stampings and molded plastic parts. Even if Tucker did acquire them at some point in time, they would be worthless to him for 3 reasons: 1) They were mostly worn out after stamping out 50+ bodies, since it is a very malleable substance(the dies "grow"in size, making sloppy pressings). 2) Tucker did not possess the proper presses to utilize these dies (25,50,100 ton). The different size parts require varying press sizes. The Chicago plant only had machine tools for building aircraft engines. 3) The cost of producing dies from 4130 steel was and is about 5 times the cost of using low cost Kirksite. It is still used today, but has it's limitations ,is highly recylable and they would be very large, just imagine the sheer size of the die for the roof alone, maybe 7 Ft wide by 12 Ft long and 3-4 Ft thick and weighing around 3 tons, where in the world would you store it? Maybe somebody in the Chicago suburbs has very shiny hot tub and has no idea what it is? (or was)!!!

[TUCKER]

As I remember there are some photos of some panels being stamped at the Tucker plant. It looks like they were doing some of the stampings there also. I will look for the photos when I have some time.

[NewFederalist]

I am also wondering about something. (I don't mean to hijack this thread.) Since this club is much different than others I am or have been a member of (ie: Studebaker Drivers Club, Avanti Owners Association International, Studebaker Owners Club of America, Studebaker Automobile Club of America etc.) because of the extremely limited number of cars to collect, has there ever been a serious attempt to produce a Tucker on a similar basis to the Avanti II? When Studebaker dropped the Avanti in 1964 the rights were purchased by Nate Altman and Leo Newman (who owned the largest Studebaker dealership in the world in South Bend) who eventually formed Avanti Motor Corporation and virtually hand built the cars. With the ongoing passion for the Tucker over 60 years later has there ever been such an effort? Just curious and if this has been covered elsewhere I apologize in advance.

[Tuckerfan1053]

Chick DeLorenzo (owner of 1051) was/is (I don't know for certain) selling fibreglas Tucker bodies. Ida Automotive has resin body versions for sale: http://www.robidaconcepts.com/page/page/1916736.htm and are working on making Carioca kits available. Personally, I'd like to see someone produce the Talisman: http://usera.imagecave.com/tuckerfan/tremtalisman.jpg

[tuckerfan1941]

As I remember there are some photos of some panels being stamped at the Tucker plant. It looks like they were doing some of the stampings there also. I will look for the photos when I have some time.

It would be nice to see the photos you might have.
As far as ownership of the dies, I have read both the Eagan & pearson books. One of them makes a reference to Tucker Paying off the dies , this would seem to imply that Tucker DID own them.
I have seen people make reference to the fact that the 50 steering wheels were given them by Ford as proof that no one was trying to make Tucker fail. I don't think that proves anything--- It was Alex Tremulis that got the wheels from a friend at Ford-- he HAD worked there at one time & I would bet that the wheels , which were "blems",were a personal favor from his friend & that Ford management knew NOTHING about it--- the fact that they were GIVEN with NO invoice & asked to be destroyed when Tucker wheels arrived would reinforce that idea.
In all the research done by interested parties has anyone ever come across records of the sales by the Gov't auction of the plant --- some I know have been found , at least as to who got what car & some parts & engines-- what about the rest?

As far as the SEC going after him for "stock fraud" -- Is it & was it not legal to sell stock to raise capital to launch a business venture, seems to me Kaiser did the same thing as well as recieving Gov't millions from RFC -( Reconstruction Finance Corp) .
The only Gov't agency that seemed to give Tucker any kind of decent shot was War Assets, by giving him the Dodge plant & trying to keep other Govt Dept's from taking it away even tho he was fufilling ( sort of) the deal they had made with him . War Assets was put under much political pressure to strip it from him on 2 or 3 occasions .

Remember it only takes TWO people in collusion to be a conspircy.