Wheelers Hollywood Didn’t Deal With
When the Yanks came home after World War II, they were eager to pursue their dreams American style--not to “beat their swords into plowshares” but into fenders, axles and high-compression engines.
Preston Tucker, the subject of the current movie “Tucker,” was just one--and not even one of the more successful--of 50 dreamers who set out to build their own cars after the war.
Director Francis Coppola has treated Tucker as a period hero, not unlike the uncorruptible title character in Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” But while the movie has caused a wave of publicity for Tucker, automotive buffs still find such names as Charles Graves, Talmadge Judd, Ben Gregory, T. P. Hall, Frank Kurtis, Hugh Dodd, Gordon Hansen, George Keller, Louis Enrod and others more interesting characters in post-war automotive history.
Why was Tucker singled out for recognition? It certainly wasn’t the uniqueness of his concept.
H. Gordon Hansen produced a car in 1948 that was far more unusual. It had four wheels, but only one in the front and one in the back, with two outrigger wheels on the sides. The Gordon’s front and rear wheels were steerable, making it one of the most easily parked cars ever designed.
Or how about Ben F. Gregory, who in 1948 produced a two-door sedan with rear engine and front-wheel drive. Or Lloyd Hunt, whose 1948 three-wheel car had a futuristic glass-bubble top. Or Talmadge Judd’s 1946 Hummingbird, a car that could easily achieve 50 miles per gallon. Or Frank Kurtis, who in 1948 produced a car that predated Corvette’s use of a fiberglass body?
Even the sky was no limit to these dream makers. Robert Edison Fulton Jr., related to inventors Robert Fulton and Thomas Edison, created a flying car in 1947, a vehicle that could do 60 m.p.h. on the ground, then with a four-minute transition to wings, could climb above the traffic and double its ground speed.
But Fulton was not the only bird-car man. That same year, a Navy commander and the inventor of the first cruise missile, created his own flying car. Moulton Taylor’s Aerocar had wings that neatly folded back into a trailer so the flight gear could tag along with the car.
Preston Tucker made 50 cars in all. That doesn’t compare to other postwar car makers who made tens of thousands before their dreams ended.
Powel Crosley Jr., for instance, made his fortune selling home appliances before he went into car production with the 1946 Crosley. The slab-sided economy car reached a total production of around 100,000 before it went under in 1952.
Henry J. Kaiser’s dream was to produce a genuine economy car for the masses. He did that with the Henry J, a 30-m.p.g. car that was marketed through Sears and Roebuck stores. The car was 58 inches wide, a measure that some say was settled on because that allowed it be shoved through the standardized double doors at Sears stores.
About 110,000 Henry Js were produced.
And of all the postwar rivals, perhaps the most unusual were Claud Dry and Dale Orcutt, who produced the King Midget from 1946-69. These two Ohio businessmen actually had a winner on their hands, but they chose to limit production to five vehicles per day, to sell without advertising, and even to turn down government contract offers. Despite their reluctance to market, they sold more than 5,000 King Midgets over the years.
So if it was not creativity of design, or quantity or longevity of production, then what was it that made Tucker’s short-lived car effort such an appealing story?
Tucker was an independent, highly charismatic man whose criticism of Detroit’s Big Three made wonderful news copy. The Tucker received far more publicity than any of the dozens of other newcomers because its leader knew how to work the underdog image, David taking on the Detroit Goliath.
In 1948, Detroit’s Big Three were each struggling with the transition from tanks and bullets to cars and trucks, a process no less difficult than starting a car line from scratch. None of the Big Three had the time--or interest--in repressing the four-dozen newcomers to the field.
Still, the image of the pioneering individual pushed down by the Establishment has tremendous mass appeal.
Long before Preston Tucker, there were men who played on the same David image. Men like Samuel Conner Pandolfo, who in 1922 managed to raise $9 million to produce the ultimate people car. Pandolfo’s Pan car had some unique features, such as headlights that could swivel to light up the engine compartment for repairs or turn to the side of the road to help change a tire. He was a supersalesman, who ended up selling several thousand shares of stock for each of the 737 cars he produced.
Far more recently, the American press was taken up by a lady from Encino. Elizabeth Carmichael, a 6-foot, 200-pound mother of five, presented her plan for a three-wheeled economy car in the midst of the fuel-conscious ‘70s. She got lots of free editorial space, then disappeared. She showed up later in Dallas as a man, Jerry Dean Michael (the five children were apparently rented for news conferences), and was eventually convicted of fraud.
Then there is Tucker’s modern-day parallel in John Zachary DeLorean. The DMC-12, DeLorean’s stainless-steel and fiberglass sports car, was introduced in 1981 as the same kind of Detroit-buster, a car that the money-hungry Detroit auto makers were unwilling to produce.
The parallels between Tucker and DeLorean are many. Both were spirited men who could entrance a press corps with their dream cars. Both took prototypes on whirlwind promotional tours, drawing in millions in stock sales and dealership franchises.
Tucker and DeLorean were charged with fraud in federal courts, and eventually acquitted. Both continued to blame the big guys in Detroit for all of their problems.
In Tucker’s and DeLorean’s cases, the auto experts say their problems were far more pedestrian. They were simply undercapitalized.
Undercapitalization is the No. 1 cause of small-business failures in America, and is especially chronic in an auto industry where the product has 15,000 parts and, next to a home, is the single most complicated item a consumer will ever purchase.
Recently, General Motors built an entirely new car line in the Chevrolet Corsica/Beretta. It cost nearly $5 billion and took five years. And that was with a company that already had its supplier base, distribution channels and dealer network well established.
Undercapitalization is not a terribly interesting topic for a major motion picture, which is why the 50 or so automotive innovators of the postwar years will never be immortalized in film.
It is clear that Tucker was undercapitalized. It is not at all clear if he was a con man or an innovative genius, or if his claims of persecution had any basis in fact. But it makes a good story, the kind they love in Hollywood.
