Words By Dionysis Nanos
How is success different than failure? I know that sounds like a mildly philosophical question, but if you think about it, we see success and failure every day, yet we can’t really tell them apart, and you know why that is so? Because of time. Time is capable of turning failures into successes and successes into shameful examples of a bygone era. Look at Steve Jobs for example, considered by many to be a revolutionary but was considered extremely difficult to work with when he worked for Atari in the 70s. And to come back to cars, this exactly fits the Tucker 48, a car so desperately ahead of its time that it flopped as ceremoniously as it bounced back years later, becoming something that all future generations have talked about and will continue talking about in the future. This special aims to tell the story of this misunderstood car, and in this first part we’re going to focus on the creator and the first steps that happened before the Tucker 48 was unveiled.
It all starts with one Preston Tucker. On a quick note, Preston Tucker first found luck in the Indianapolis 500, before trying to make a war vehicle named the “Tucker Tiger” and later a fighter plane, the Tucker XP-57, both of which failed to materialize, even though the US Marine Corps showed interest in the XP-57. But after these failed attempts, Preston Tucker decided to focus on a new market that was booming, that of cars. See, after WW2, people wanted new cars and new designs, something that wasn’t cheap for the Big 3 as they hadn’t developed any new cars since 1941, but that helped smaller car makers like Nash and Studebaker, the former making the Nash 600, noted as the first American-made car to feature a unibody and the latter making the Studebaker Starlight, which was one of the very first post-war designs to reach production. Tucker saw the money that could be made and so decided to go ahead with the design and manufacturing of a car that would have such features as disc brakes, fuel injection, independent suspension and seat belts. Oh and did I say that was 1947? Tucker then should have obliterated the competition with all this technology. Surely nothing could go wrong.. Or could it?
Tucker brochure showing the future dealerships (happier times for the company I guess)
See, the problems with the Tucker 48 started long before the first car rolled off the production line. They start at the time the car’s design started taking shape. No fewer than seven car designers (you read that correctly) worked on the design of the car, starting from the summer of 1944, when George Lawson penned the original design, which was changed, when he left Tucker, by Greek-American Alex Tremulis, who himself got replaced with a team of five designers (Budd Steinhilber, Tucker Madawick, Hal Bergstrom, Phillip Egan and Read Viemeister) that came up with the final design. But after the design was finalized then another problem cropped up. That of the engine. And what a big problem that was.
When I say big, I literally mean big, since the original engine that was designed, made and fitted in the prototype 48, was a 589 cubic inch (9.65 litres!!!) water-cooled flat six, with fuel injection, oil pressure operated overhead valves and hemispherical combustion chambers (made popular in the Hemi engine that was made by Chrysler). It had aluminum and magnesium pistons and made 200 hp and 610 Nm (450 lb ft) of torque at just 1800 RPM! It idled at 100 rpm and cruised at 1000, something that’s incredible by any standards, modern or otherwise. Sadly, as the engine was being developed, problems arose, which meant that the Tucker 589 was only used in the first prototype. So after that Tucker was looking at another engine which they got… from a helicopter. Yes, a helicopter.
Tucker, secured the air-cooled flat six from the Franklin Engine Company, named the O-355, that was supposed to be fitted to the B47 helicopter. Why did they do that? Cause it ticked all the boxes. Tucker wanted an engine that was powerful enough to carry the immense weight of the car and that also fit in the rear where the engine was supposed to be. Many modifications were performed to the original helicopter engine, like switching from air cooling to water cooling, but in the end Tucker had a reliable enough engine which they also tested at maximum power for 150 hours, which is the equivalent of 29 thousand miles at full throttle. So that was at least part of Tucker’s problems solved but what happened later is a different story…
The O-355 engine in the back of the 48
Join us on the second part of the story of the Tucker 48, where we’ll cover the rest of the problems, the interesting solutions Tucker gave and the launch of the car that was… surprising to say the least.
