Tucker 48 heads to auction
The car, which could fetch $1.9 million, was once owned by George Lucas.
The car, which could fetch $1.9 million, was once owned by George Lucas.
Martyn Donaldson leans hard against the hulking 1948 Tucker 48 and rolls it out of his small restoration shop in Pacoima.
Although the color on its build sheet is listed as maroon, the midafternoon sun reveals a metallic luster in the showroom quality paint job. Electric raspberry, Donaldson calls it.
This Tucker 48 — just the third in a total run of 51 — counts among its former owners George Lucas, who made a movie about the short-lived car company. When it goes up for auction in March, it’s expected to fetch $1.5 million to $1.9 million, according to RM auctions, which is handling the sale.
The 48 has spent the better part of three years at Donaldson’s shop. The Tucker expert thoroughly restored the car’s engine and electrical system, and also installed a new transmission and interior. Before it arrived in Pacoima, the Tucker’s chrome and body were restored to original specifications at a shop in nearby Sun Valley.
Now that this 48 is as fresh as it was when it rolled out of the Tucker factory in Chicago in 1948, it will head to Amelia Island, Fla. RM Auctions announced this week that it put the car up for sale there March 9.
Known as the Tucker Torpedo, the car was the brainchild of Preston Tucker, who saw an opportunity in postwar America — when the Big Three were still recovering from the war effort and building outdated cars — to create something innovative. He never got the chance.
Before large-scale production of the car could commence in 1948, Tucker and several of his executives were indicted by the Securities and Exchange Commission on mail fraud and conspiracy charges. By the time they were acquitted of all charges in 1950, the public’s interest in the cars had waned. The company folded.
The rise and fall of Tucker — the man and the company — was chronicled in the 1988 film “Tucker: The Man and His Dream,” starring Jeff Bridges. Francis Ford Coppola was the director, and George Lucas was the executive producer. Coppola and Lucas each bought Tucker 48s. Lucas later sold this model to the current owners, who commissioned its restoration.
“Tuckers almost had a mystical quality to the innovative design and creativity that went into creating them,” said McKeel Hagerty, owner of a classic car insurance and valuation company.
The technologies Tucker envisioned on his rear-engine car included disc brakes, fuel injection and the car’s most distinctive fea- ture, a center-mounted headlight that would turn with the steering wheel. Unfortunately, the realities of production meant that only the headlight and the engine placement came to fruition.
Production cars did come with innovative safety features like a windshield that would pop out in a crash, a padded dashboard when most were metal, and a space by the front passenger’s feet where they could duck before an accident. (This was before seat belts were required.)
After his initial engine design proved a failure, Tucker bought a light-aircraft engine company and retrofitted a helicopter engine to work in his cars. So a watercooled, 335 cubic-inch, 166horsepower flat six-cylinder engine sits behind the rear passengers.
The transmission is a four-speed, vacuum-electric, pre-selector transmission borrowed from Cord automobiles built in the late 1930s. To use it, the driver first selects the next gear with a small lever mounted to a stalk on the steering column, then pushes a foot pedal to engage the shift. Despite the innovative features, and the car’s progressive styling — including suicide doors for the rear passengers — the company survived long enough to build and sell only 50 Tucker 48s and a prototype.
Because of the rarity of the car, and its technology, collectors are starting to value them more than almost any other postwar American car, Hagerty said.
“If you’re building a 20- or 30-car, ultimate collection, this could be in it,” Hagerty said. Also driving up the value is that Tuckers don’t come up for public sale often.
“When one becomes available, if you want one, you buy it,” Donaldson said. “You can’t get picky.”
So what kind of experience will this Tucker’s next owner get for his millions?
Happy to demonstrate, Donaldson hops in the driver’s seat. The six-cylinder engine needs a bit of coaxing before it coughs to life. After clearing its throat, the Tucker 48 settles down to a low, throaty idle. The exhaust, broadcast through six tailpipes, has a richer note than you would expect from a six-cylinder car of this vintage.
A brief ride in the Tucker 48 on the streets found the car to be an engaging, if somewhat bouncy cruiser. The large bench seat in the front has springs like your grandmother’s couch, so you bob up and down when the car hits a bump.
Whether the new buyer will take it out for a drive is unknown; Donaldson says many existing Tuckers have been museum pieces for much of their lives. Yet the car would be just as appropriate for car shows around the country. “It would have a crowd of people around it the whole time,” Hagerty said.
And if anyone asks, that’s not maroon. It’s electric raspberry.