TACA cars in film?

[redbear]

Hi all, I am new here. Just watched the film Tucker, and am curious.....where did Coppola get all the cars for his movie? This has likely been asked before, but was the club instrumental in supplying the cars in the film? I thought maybe that it was some kind of optical effect, and that they were not real (models?), and would appreciate some clarification of this from the knowledgable folks in this forum. The man made a helluva car, and the fact that there are so many still around is cause for celebration!

cheers,

Lisa

[plancor 792]

Hi Lisa,
There were 22 of the original Tucker automobiles in Richmond, CA for the filming of the movie.
Sorry I don't keep all the information in my head but as soon as I look it up I will post details.
Russ Brownell and myself were hired by Lucas Films to repair and maintain those cars while the filming was going on.
Francis Ford Coppola joined TACA and was supplied with a list of owners whom were contacted about having their cars used in the movie.
Will add more to this shortly.

Richard (Tuckkermch@aol.com)

[plancor 792]

Hi Lisa,
I corresponded with Francis Ford Coppola from May 1974 on. He joined TACA around 1978. I am not sure of the exact date. I supplied him with a list of Tucker owners. This list had been compiled by members of TACA. I believe it was Tom Sparks who contacted the owners about sending their Tucker's to Richmond, CA for the film.
Lucas Film Ltd entered into a standard agreement with the owners and paid them $2,500.00 per vehicle to use them in the movie.
Twenty two owners agreed to the arrangement. However only ninteen of those vehicles appear in the film. The other three stayed in the staging area as they were incomplete.

The following cars were in Richmond:
Serial Numbers 1004, 1005, 1009, 1012, 1013, 1014, 1015, 1017, 1019, 1020, 1021, 1022, 1025, 1026, 1029, 1031, 1041, 1050 and the incomplete car that was being assembled from parts that is now refered to as 1051. 1051, 1039 and 1020 were the only cars that did not appear in the movie. We also had 4 replicars that were made by Mike Fennel Enterprises of Los Angeles, CA. These were 1974 Ford V-8's with plastic Tucker bodies. They cost $35,000.00 each. Due to the Tucker design these cars overheated badly. They installed larger radiators and dual electric fans in them to help cool the engines.

Will reread your message and possibly add more to this later, if I haven't answered your questions.

Richard (Tuckermch@aol.com)

[Larry Clark]

Richard: Back at the time you were working on the movie set, did you and Russ ever sit around and marvel at the fact that the two of you were undoubtedly working with more completed, running Tucker cars than anyone ever before, including Preston Tucker and the other employees once associated with the company? If I was asked to place a bet, I doubt that so many completed, running Tucker cars will ever again be in one place at one time.

Larry

[plancor 792]

In my previous post I left out Tucker 1037 as one of the original cars there. It should be included in the listing. Not only can I not count but I cannot spell. (Previous email's) Email address in first post to this message is in error. Should anyone want to contact me, my email address is Tuckermch@aol.com
Larry, Russ and I had many conversations about having all of those Tucker's in one place at the same time. We also had some nice discussions with Alex and Chrissie Tremulis, Martin Landau and Mako.
Martin and Mako were very interested in the Tucker's history. The last evening there I had dinner with Alex and Chrissie. I might also add that we were kept very busy trying to keep those cars running. Many had not been run for long periods of time. We had brake problems and fuel problems as the lines were clogged or the linkage to the carburetor was rusty and pressing on the gas pedal did not always give positive response till it was pressed harder, then the engine would take off at a very high RPM. The throttle linkage went through a protective sleeve and rust accumulated between the cable and sleeve causing this problem.Other problems were with the suspensions. One car had a bad clutch another had a bad generator, one overheated and still another jumped out of gear. We had engines misfiring and another had a master cylinder leak. One of the vehicles would not run until we worked on it for hours and still another had a shift vacuum tank that was frozen up. We worked day and night to correct these problems.

I'm sure there will never be this many Tucker's assembled in one location again in my lifetime.

Richard

[plancor 792]

Screwed up once again. After reading my above post it seems that I also forgot to mention that Tucker 1034 was one of the Tucker's that made the trip to Richmond, CA.

Cars in Richmond CA for the movie are:
Serial Number 4, 5, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 29, 31, 34, 37, 39, 41, 50, and the incomplete vehicle that we now refer to as 51.
These numbers are preceeded by either 100 or 10 such as 1004 and 1012.

Will have to take of my shoes and start counting my toes to get it correct. So it the above doesn't add up to 22 cars would someone let me know?

Richard

[Guest]

Richard, thanks so much for your helpful reply. I am happy that my eyes were not deceiving me, and that all those gorgeous cars were real, and not models as I had feared I understand there is an event in Chicago in June, and since I live not too far away, am considering attending. The more I learn of these cars, and the man with the vision, the more I admire and appreciate both!

[redbear]

Oh, the above post was by me....forgot to sign in as myself
Cheers to all Tucker fans

Lisa

[TorpedoTucker48]

Hi Richard

Thanks for posting your story. I am very interesting.

Tucker Rulez

Eddie

[ehartman13]

Richard,
Reading this post was very informative, but it left me wondering a few questions. First, who drove the cars in the movie for most of the scenes? Was it professional people associated with the film or were the actual owners of the cars allowed to drive them? Also, when you talked about the repairs that had to be done to them, was this done at no charge to the owners or did they have to pay for them? And I just wondered since both Coppola (#1014) and Lucas (#1005, #1009) owned TUCKERS and you have them listed as appearing in the film, did any of those 3 cars need any repair? Thanks, Eric

[guest]

When I talked to Dave Cammac 01,22,26 owner, he said the cars came back to his so bad that thay all needed paint, and body work. He changed the color of 26 while at it. I guess the owners did it for the saving of the story/history, but thay got back damaged cars. On the plus side every Tucker went up in value 10X because of the movie. I wonder if those 2 movie makers made more on the movie or the rise in value of those 3 Tuckers thay own?????

[Guest]

Hi all,
George Lucas purchased Tucker 1009 and 1003 after the movie was made. Tucker 1009 was owned by Bill Goodwin and The Goodwin Museum and he sent it to Calif. Coppola owned Tucker 1014 and 1037. Tucker 1014 was disassembled and its parts were used to make those plastic parts that are presently for sale by TACA. The body shell appeared on the assembly line during the making of the movie. Tucker 1037 was the car shown on the stage as they introduced the car to Dealers and Distributors.
Several of the cars in the movie were driven by their owners. Russ and I checked out several Lucas employees in how to properly drive the Tucker.
Dave Cammack is correct in saying the cars were damaged during the movie. After the movie the moving company "Passport Van Lines" caused further damage to his Tucker 1026 when they off loaded it somewhere out west to put another vehicle in the hauler. I learned one thing from the movie. If you treasure something you don't loan it to a company making a movie.
For the film, Russ Brownell drove Tucker 1022 and I drove 1026. Jeff Bridges also drove 1022 in some scenes.
Lucas had no setup to clean up the cars when they arrived and Tom Sparks was kept busy doing that. Lucas also ordered several sets of wide whitewall tires so all of the cars would have the same tires. When they arrived in Richmond, some cars had narrow whitewalls, some had black tires. I believe at least 10 sets or 40 tires were ordered and mounted on the cars.
When I talked to Francis Ford Coppola about how the cars were being treated he replied, " if we damage it we will have it fixed". The most damage was done to Tucker 1013 and as I recall the owner had to file a law suit to get proper repairs to the car.
Also in the movie, on the scenes of the production line, at the very end of the line they had 10 full size photographs mounted on plywood to simulate more cars on the production line. There were 5 of these photographs on the right and 5 on the left. The ones on the left were reverse photos so the steering wheel and the side view mirrors appear on the left side of the photo. They claimed that this would not be noticed in the movie and I really haven't looked for it. I have photos of these "cars". Also the 4 Mike Fennel cars were on the production line at that time .

Richard

[Tuckers in the movie]

I will follow up on information I forgot in the previous message.
The tucker Club Meet is in chicago, IL June23-26, 2005. Check Club web page for details.
In Richmond, CA Coppola kept his 1037 under a cover and in a completely different area than the rest of the cars were. Russ and I did not work on it but briefly. Originally I was to go to Richmond to look after Dave Cammack's Tucker's however they had problems with 1037 and they ask Russ to overhaul the engine. Russ said he could only do that if I were to come out and help him. So Lucas hired me. I knew that Bill Hamlin had overhauled the engine a short while back so when I got there I looked at it and it was determined that it was running too rich. I adjusted the carburetor and it ran great after that. 1014 was acompletely disassembled so they could use it to make all those plastic spare parts that were a part of the movie.



Richard

[TuckerCar]

For everyone's sanity, I have edited and am closing this Topic.