Bev's Tucker

[589]

Greetings all, newbie here (but kinda old everywhere else). Back in the mid 80's I had a restoration shop in San Fran, this led me to meeting Bev. Bought many parts and shop equipment from him when he had his small parking garage in the North Beach area. At the time he stored his Tucker and a 30's Caddy there (IIRC).

He told me the story (which many of you already know) of his purchase of the car from the Sutro Baths. Saw mention of pistons in another thread on this forum and thought I'd share some trivia with you. He told me that Lonnie Jensen (a local old time machine shop) did the machine work on his engine. At one time they were a piston manufacturer and made up some special pistons for him. Can no longer recall if these were made from scratch or modified from something off the shelf, but there was quite a bit of discussion concerning the ring grooves in general. At the time this story didn't seem of any great import to me but after having read that other thread which mentioned that the original pistons lacked oil rings now it all makes sense...Bev must've realized that this needed to be addressed during the rebuild process.

Can't help but wonder if he shared this info with any other Tucker owners/aficionados.

By the way, I have the prototype station wagon convertible buried beneath the outhouse in my backyard, anyone wanna buy it? I'll take a bridge in trade.

[Tucker Fan 48]

From what I've read Bev shared a lot of information about his #1041 Tucker. I noticed that
he attended many Tucker functions and was noted in the Tucker Repair manual that was
put together in 1991. #1041 was probably driven more in recent years than many other
of the cars. With the value of the cars hitting up to 1 million dollars there aren't too many
owners willing to take them out for a spin.

[TuckerCar]

Bev and Dorothy were truly great people. Aside from all the respect we have for them for how they drove and shared their Tucker, they were fun people with great personalities. And what I didn't realize until after they both passed was there were so many people that shared that view. Even though they did not have large families, they were involved in so many different car clubs and are missed by so many.

The last time I saw both of them was at the 2008 TACA Convention in Ypsilanti. We drove them downtown to the cruise night. It was about 6 months before Dorothy died and maybe 10 months before Bev. Bev was starting to slow down at that point and was very quiet (more quiet than usual). But he still managed to make a point of repeatedly hitting on my wife in his trademark way. Dorothy was in perfect form - yellow Tucker earrings on, always in control of any situation and never afraid to voice her opinion or tell someone they didn't know what they were talking about. My favorite memory was in 2006 when she went at it with Bill "Speedy" Smith about how many cars were featured in the movie, and what the correct upholstery material was.

It was a shock when Dorothy passed. Perhaps not so much when Bev followed shortly thereafter. I was glad that we were able to spend some extra time with them.

I think we all secretly have our favorite Tucker and many TACA members even have their favorite Tucker owners. But no matter which or who that is, Bev and Dorothy and 1041 always seemed to be for everyone.