News of SEC raiding Tucker's office in the newspaper?

[oakman]

Hi there!

Since buying the Tucker-movie on VHS I have watched it a number of times and each time I am more and more fascinated by Preston Tucker and his 'Torpedo'! If he was anything in real life, like the way he was depicted in the movie by Jeff Bridges, he must have been a great guy!

When I get to the point in the film, where Tucker is back-stabbed by his own board members and his Senator (great idea to have his father playing the role!), it is absolutely gut-wrenching every time!

Anyway, what I would like to know - and couldn't find in any of the other questions/answers on the message-board - is: did the headlines that the SEC had raided Tuckers office and confiscated files etc. actually appear in newspaper before it happened (did they raid actually raid his office?), or was that just a bit of poetic license by Coppola to show the insurmountable obstacles Tucker was facing?

Many thanks for a GREAT, GREAT website!

Kind regards from Germany!

Jonathan

[Tuckerfan1053]

Welcome to the boards, oakman!

I am not sure if it actually happened that way, but the newspapers were given all sorts of information they shouldn't have had by the SEC. I don't know if the proper term would be "raided," but the SEC did show up at the plant and basically took over it during their investigation.

[Larry Clark]

The SEC was awful in how it leaked information to the press (and to favored high political friends). However, there was also an aspect of showmanship by Preston Tucker in the raids because he was asked to quietly turned over records and did not. What is sometimes missed is that in this era there were not modern copier machines and electronic copies of stuff. Much of what the SEC took were original work products files. Since they were casting a broad net, the SEC undoubtedly took many more files than truly needed. However the raids ultimately came to happen, it had to be highly disruptive to a new company already challenged to make a go of it. Was this an intentional consequence? Preston Tucker always believed so. Hard to argue differently. Larry

[Ganaraska]

The newspaper article describing the SEC raid before it took place, actually happened. At least it was part of Tucker lore long before the movie was made.

Another thing that was authentic, was Tucker's occasional misuse of words such as "exhilaration" for "acceleration" or "aunt Dora's box" for "Pandora's box".

Much of the movie was based on fact although, it was not a documentary.