1media/1948_Tucker48-thumb.jpgmedia/Tucker_01.jpg2020-07-27T12:35:59-07:001948 Tucker 4819plain2020-08-27T10:13:16-07:00The Big Three automakers felt so threatened by Preston Tucker’s new sedan that they conspired to sabotage his efforts. They enlisted the help of Michigan senator Homer Ferguson, whom many suspect of engineering an SEC investigation into the company. The suspicion of fraud dampened the public’s appetite for the vehicle, and only 51 of the vehicles were ever made (about one-fifth of the total produced can be seen here on the assembly line). Many of the 47 Tuckers that survive were reunited onscreen for a 1988 Francis Ford Coppola biopic about the car designer.
1media/1948_Tucker_48%202-thumb.jpgmedia/Tucker_02.jpg2020-07-27T12:38:26-07:001948 Tucker 4810plain2020-08-22T20:08:21-07:00Entrepreneur Preston Tucker saw an opportunity following World War II. The Big Three automakers had not put out a newly designed car since 1941, and he knew the public hungered for something different. A lifelong tinkerer, he devised an original automobile whose innovations included seatbelts, a windshield that popped out instead of shattering in a crash, and a center headlight that turned in order to light the car’s path around corners. A crowd of 3,000 gathered for its unveiling, which nearly went awry when last-minute repairs had to be made behind the scenes.