At six-years-old, he saw his first car while riding in his grandfather’s buggy. It scared the horses, and captured his imagination forever. As a boy, he disassembled his mother’s appliances, occasionally even repairing them. He attended Cass Tech in Detroit, before snagging a job as office boy at Cadillac. There, he devised a way to deliver mail on roller skates with amazing speed until the day he collided with D. McCall White, top brass. Tucker soon found work elsewhere.
At 19, he joined the police force, mostly to drive the cars. One cold day, to heat his squad car, he used a torch to cut a hole through the dash and divert hot air from the manifold. His boss disapproved, and urged him to sell cars instead.
He was a great car salesman, but he wanted to sell his own cars. He attended the Indy 500 religiously, and came to know racing legends like Harry Miller. Miller & Tucker, Inc. was established in 1935, and built racing and marine engines. But Tucker soon left to manage a Packard dealership.
He would take anything of value in trade, including jewelry, furs, horses, and even dogs. After three lucrative years selling Packards, Preston Tucker sensed war was imminent, and designed a high-speed military car with a motorized turret. The U.S. government immediately employed the turret design, but regarded the vehicle as “too fast for combat” (?).
Tucker gambled that after the war, Americans would prefer entirely new cars to restyled pre-war models. He was able to acquire a former Dodge plant in Cicero, near Chicago where, if he could finance it, he would fulfill his dream of manufacturing his own innovative automobile.
National advertising depicted a massive, streamlined car with a third headlight that turned with the steering wheel. It spoke of a padded dash, safety glass, and a collapsible steering wheel. The car had a photoelectric high-beam dimmer, cruise control, and doors that extended into the roof. Its aluminum, air-cooled engine was in the rear, and could move it from 0-60 in ten seconds at speeds of over 120 mph. Tucker sold $6 million in dealerships before a prototype was even built.
The industry was impressed and even intimidated by the list of innovations Tucker offered. Whether or not it was a conspiracy, production was stalled by unreliable suppliers and elusive, changing regulations, and only 51 cars were built. Unable to meet the requirements of its investors, the company closed it doors. But slowly, “the Big 3” capitalized on Tucker’s ideas, many of which have appeared in other new car showrooms ever since.
By Adam Icenogle
Preston Tucker