Mystery Car #2 -"the new can of worms that hide secrets"

[MrOldie]

If you go to Philip Eagan's book - Design and Destiny: the Making of the Tucker Automobile look at page 58. It is a drawing of Egan's design for a Tucker convertible that he forgot about until writing the book, so he claims in the book.

[Tommy]

A few questions...

TUCKER,
1. How do you know the body in the lot is not 1027. It looks like it has the same tweak after the roll, minus the roof. Do you have a better pic showing something I dont see?

2. How can you tell the front deck lids apart? I did not realize they had different styles, I was only going by the paint color.

3. Dont you think the instrument cluster and steering wheel are attached to the 1052 test chassis and that could be why its different?

4. Why dont you want to share the photos of 1055? I would really like to see them.

Can anyone post or repost the drawing of a convertible sold with 57, I dont think I have seen that one.

[TUCKER]

Ok, I will posrt the 1055 body in a few days but first on this mystery easter egg #2 I will point out all the parts from 1052. Everything painted black is 1052 which was the test car! the front fenders and back fenders were from 1018 and the green door is from 1027. I will show more later. You see the roof?

[TUCKER]

Ok since it is hard for you to see and you have never seen other photos, Here is the body of 1052 as found along with the other parts you see painted black! The other parts were off the car when found like left from the factory! There was no roof when found and the paint had washed away over the years under the rain and snow! If you look closely you may see some of the panels inside the car! I have other photos but due to lots of hours of my time in resurch I can't just give everything here very easy to all of you.

[tractiondk]

Nice work Tucker.

The pictures (negative?) must have been taken at Stan Gillilands place with all the Cords in the background. But wasen't it body 1055 that Stan had rescued?

Torsten

[Tommy]

Plancor said in his last post that Mr. Gilland had Body 55 and a frame. The body had a tree fall on it denting the top. It looks like the frame just sat there too. I guess I wouldnt call that a rescue but at least the parts were not completly destroyed.

[TUCKER]

Here is body 1055 and a tree fell on this body. See the front of the roof. Also yes that car with no roof was at Stan and it is 1052.

[TuckerCar]

The drawings that Kughn commissioned for his convertible were done by Dave Holls of GM design fame. We have these in the TACA Archives (signed by Holls).

And the prize has now been upgraded to a trip to Gary, Indiana accompanied by Octomom and all of her children, with free use of a 1984 Cadillac Cimarron equipped with a "Baby on Board" window sign and two of those rubber straps that supposedly cut static electricity.

[TUCKER]

That shure sound like the trip everyone would love to win. The trip everyone have always dream of! Come on everybody, there is a great prize to win. You heard TuckerCar and he never lies.

TuckerCar, why don't we also have a second and third place winner also? What do you think?

[john]

TuckerCar & Tucker,

The rendering being sold to us with #57, was done by Holls also.
Tatraman pointed that out when we sent him a copy of it, quite awhile ago.

They looked quite different from the ones taped to the side of the Michigan sale car and parts.

Guess that discounts Preston and the Tucker factory out of the way, time frame is all wrong again, isn't it ?
Secreted away in a Easter basket perhaps ?????????????????????

John

[Randy Earle]

Here's a print of the negative.

[TUCKER]

Hi, I believe this other easter egg is not 1052 but test chassis number 2 or something else. If you look at the photos of test chassis number 2 you can see they look the same! so when Gilliland said it was test chassis number 2 he might have been correct on that. Now Al Reinart always called it 1052. Now one of my friends said this 1052 car had a diferent cross member on the back of the frame to hold an automatic transmission or something! Look at the three photos.

[plancor 792]

Viewing the photo that bears a licence tag 1- 15 I believe that is one of the experimental automatic transmissions. Having worked on Tucker 1026 with its R-1 automatic there is no doubt in my mind. Also note the cross member which is identical to the one in 1026. But is this an R-1/ R-2 or R-3 automatic. Most probably an R-1.

Richard

[TUCKER]

Hi Richard, in your point of view do the two cars look to be the same car? It look the same to me and they are both test cars. I know this is not the same 1026 car since it had part of a front coul. The roof had been cut off. Also as I remember this frame was not used on 1026 or any other car. As I see the test car sold by Al Reinart after buying it was from Gilliland along with 1027 sold as 1052 but by Al but Gilliland always used to call it test chassis number two. Gilliland never said it was 1052. So could this two cars be the same? On my point of view it is the same car in every way. Let me know what you think

[Tuckeroo]

The car being referred to as #1052 has also been referred to as test chassis #3, and it does have an R1 Tuckermatic. Likely you will also find it referred to in either The Indomitable Tin Goose or Design and Destiny, but only as a test chassis with Tuckermatic, no indication as to a number. It can also be seen in the 1948 promo film Tucker: The Man and His Car on DVD (not the whole chassis, just the suspension in operation). In terms of when it was built, the implication of those and other sources puts it closer to car #1026, not in the 1050s, so it would be nice to know when (at least in sequence) it fell in/out of line. I get the designation of test chassis #3 from Mr. Cammack, as he owns test chassis #2 with a 589 engine. That one was advertised by Nick Jenin as being #2. Test chassis #1 also had a 589 engine and accompanied the Tin Goose, though today no one seems to know where it is. I've wondered privately if what is being called #1 and #2 are actually one and the same, there are differences looking at photographs (things such as the hydraulic valve lines) but I could easily believe that it was the one and only 589 test chassis with modifications subsequent to the world premiere...makes sense given that it was built for experimentation it would show signs of change.