We were driving back from Las Vegas when we came upon a mint-condition '48Tucker, having tire problems. A tire was not flat, but starting to comeapart. We followed him to an abandoned gas station in Yermo, Ca. to getout of the desert sun, and helped him change the tire. During the process I got some great photos of a great car. I don'tremember the owner's name, but he and his wife had purchased the car brandnew in 1948, and were returning from a Tucker rally in Las Vegas. Most ofthe Tuckers had been trucked or trailered into the rally, but they haddriven this one from San Francisco.

Engine in the back...It is a converted helicopter aluminum block engine. The gear shifter is that little button at the end of the post sticking out of the steering wheel. Headlight in the center turns with the steering wheel.

ABOUT THE TUCKER CAR...

There's still the question if the cars were any good or not. For starters,it's doubtful that any car maker besides Tucker can say that 60 years afterthey were first built, the bulk of their cars are still around. From aperformance standpoint, Tuckers are hard to beat when placed against others fromtheir era. In 1954, Bill Hamlin pitted his Tucker against a new Oldsmobile88. The Olds had a V-8, the Tucker a flat-head six. At the time, Hamlin'sTucker had 110,000 on the clock, the Olds topped out at 78.8 MPH, whileHamlin's Tucker topped out at 82 MPH. Hamlin had a slight disadvantage, inthat he had to start his car in second gear (Tuckers had a 4-speed, tranny,BTW), since the torque from the engine most likely would have shredded theCord tranny if he'd started in first. The Tucker also stopped in twothirds the distance of the Olds. The helicopter engine, which powered theTucker could run for 1,500 hours without a rebuild, and exceeded everymilitary specification required of it. At least one Tucker had 200,000miles on the clock without needing a major repair.

Hamlin's unmodified Tucker was rated at 103 HP at 2,000 RPM, while a 1954Cadillac was only 87 HP at 2,000 RPM in dyno testing. A Tucker's engineput out some 372 ft-lbs of torque and the car had 0-60 times of 10seconds. Not bad for a 4,200 lb car.

As far as safety features, well everyone knows about the center headlight,padded dash, seat belts, and pop-out windshield, but those are only partof the Tucker's safety features. Unlike cars of the era, or most carsbuilt today, the Tucker used a unibody which was welded to an automotiveframe (in order to eliminate body rattles), thus giving the protection ofa safety cage. Additionally, the frame of a Tucker was shaped like aship's prow at the front and rear. The reason for this was that researchby the folks at the Tucker Corp. revealed that most collisions tended tobe glancing blows at an angle. The prow shape of the frame, it was hoped,would deflect the other vehicle away from the Tucker. There were alsosteel bulkheads at the front and rear of the passenger compartment, tofurther protect the passengers. The aerodynamics of the car were such thatyou didn't need to use the wipers above 50 MPH. The bumpers were mountedon springs to absorb shock in a crash, and because of the weight balanceprovided by the rear mounted engine the brakes would wear evenly and thecar would lower itself evenly, instead of the front end pitching down, inpanic stops. The rims were also designed so that if one of the tires wentflat, the car wouldn't pull dramatically to that side. With the use oflive bearings, the front end of the car was "light" enough, that the cardidn't need power steering.

The steering wheel was designed to dissipate the impact of the driver'sbody in a crash (sadly, they never got made) and the steering column was abreakaway design so that it wouldn't "spear" the driver in the event of acrash.

Sadly, because so few Tuckers were produced, the data on how well theywould protect the occupants in a crash is severely limited. We know,that when a car rolled on the test track at around 100 MPH, the driverescaped with only a bruised elbow, and the car was able to be driven awayunder it's own power. It's now common place for automakers to do crashtesting on computers (and they've found that it gives better results thanreal world testing), and if an owner of a Tucker would be willing toconsent to a thorough examination of their car (the original blueprintshave been lost), it should be possible for someone with the necessarysoftware (a university perhaps) to gather enough information to simulate acollision with a Tucker in a computer so we could exactly determine howsafe a Tucker was. (That's assuming that Toyota, which owns a Tucker,hasn't already done so. If you have, guys, please share the data! Thanks.)

Had Tucker continued, we have only the barest hints as to what would havebeen. We know that there would have been at least two possible designs fora two door version of the car. We know, also that Tucker had purchased thepatents of Secondo Campini which related to automotive turbines, andpossibly would have beat Chrysler in it's development of a turbine car.And thanks to Philip Egan we have some idea of what a modern Tucker wouldlook like.

Still, even up to the moment he died, Tucker was trying to start anothercar company. Several backers in Brazil were willing to support Tucker, buthe kept holding out for an American backer. However, he did name a car inhonor of Rio. It was to be called the "Carioca" and, IMHO, was a stunningwork of art. Tucker was pretty closemouthed about the features of the car,but we know that it would have been built on a modular platform, and couldhave been easily converted into a pick up. It would have had a 100 HP rearmounted air cooled engine built by Aircooled Motors, with disc brakes, 12volt electrical system, four wheel independent suspension, and except forthe electrical components would have had one bolt and cap screw size.

There are a few known glitches with the car: The first is that the centerheadlight didn't work as well as predicted (this could have been correctedwith a lens change), the pop out windshield could be removed with amoistened toilet plunger (making the cars easy pickings for thieves), andthe transmission had lubrication problems at idle (stop and go trafficwould play hell on the tranny). However, these are relatively minor issuesand likely would have been easy to correct if the cars had gone intoproduction. Also not bad consider a lot of the design work was basicallydone in somebody's garage.