The year was 1948 and well, Tucker happened. There are many sides to Preston Tucker’s story. One is essentially what Francis Ford Coppola portrayed in his biopic, Tucker: The Man and his Dream, where a man with a better idea is prevented from fairly competing by the two-headed serpent of Washington and big business. The flip side is that Mr. Tucker was a scam artist that conned would-be stock holders out of $15m by selling them accessories for a product that didn’t exist. He was indicted for fraud, you know. But what really sank Tucker? Ironically, it was the “Tuckermatic” transmission. Most likely because of his racing background, Preston Tucker stuck a helicopter engine in the back of the Tucker Torpedo. Initially air-cooled, the flat-six produced a whopping 372 lb-ft of torque. Enough torque to rip the guts out of most transmissions in 1948. Tucker decided to address the problem with his Tuckermatic, a slushbox that sported only 27 moving parts– 90 less than conventional cog swappers. Only he never bothered to put a reverse gear in the prototype tranny. The press not only had a field day writing about “the car that couldn’t backup.” The Tucker brand lost much of its luster. Sure, he eventually threw a Cord automatic into his Torpedo. But the damage was done. Despite building 51 prototypes, many alleged that P. Tucker either never intended to mass produce the cars or that he was in so deep with on the development end of things he never got around to buying the necessary machines and tools to fire-up an assembly line. Any of this sound, well, shockingly similar to what’s going on at Tesla? While the details are obviously different (Washington and Detroit getting anything accomplished? Ha ha ha ha ha) the large strokes are, well… Promise one transmission, deliver another that prevents the car from achieving its advertised performance potential. Claim that development mules are actually production cars. Collect large amounts of money from investors only to play fast and loose with the books. Tucker and his six co-defendants were eventually cleared of any and all wrong doing, but the damage (and Tucker) was done. How far behind is Tesla?
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Unlike Tucker, Tesla is trying to make niche market cars during a huge down swing in the economy where Tucker was starting production just when things were starting to jump. I doubt we will see their sedan ever reach production.
Tesla does have the advantage of the web. It is a low cost way to market to people world wide. Sadly, People are broke world wide. I doubt there are enough mega rich people with interest in a Tesla. Right now, if you want to try to be green, you buy Toyota Hybrids. At least if something happens to those, they will be around to fix them. I wish Tesla the best, but odds are against them.
Oh no doubt in my mind that Tesla is Tucker-redux.
They are masters at PR, while swindling investors and customers along for the ride. Their goals are good and correct, but they are doomed to fail as Preston Tucker was. The Roadsters of today are the Torpedoes of tomorrow.
–chuck
I never drew that parallel. Hm…
Of course, the “Who Killed The Electric Car” fans swear that Tesla is the Next Big Thing, but they were laying off people and closing stores too, right? And they only had $9 million in the bank and had to get a $20-40 million loan (forget the exact number) to stay afloat. Making cars must be harder than it looks.
I mean, at least GM has something to show with the Volt, while Tesla hasn’t shown much of the Whitestar or whatever they’re calling it now.
What an insult to Tucker!
Tucker built 51 examples. How many real cars has Tesla delivered?
Oh, and showroom display models with no internals don’t count…
And I hate to disagree with Chuck, but you can fix a Tucker; parts are available or can be fabricated. How do you “fabricate” the computers and operating systems that control the Tesla Roadster?
Something tells me that they’ll not be very forthcoming with source codes.
Ferrarimanf355:
“at least GM has something to show with the Volt”
ROFL….Thanks for making me laugh on an otherwise dismal, dreary day.
I hope so.
Just one look into my portfolio value would disqualify me from answering this question, but since I amassed my portfolio of loosing stocks…
I think this venture is backed up by huge piles of cash, connections and influence. Tucker had much less sophistication. It was different era.
There are a number of parallels, particularly the transmission issues.
However, I think it’s too early to predict Tesla’s demise. They might not become the company that they thought they would be, but their roadster is basically just a modified Elise that Lotus is manufacturing for them, so if they get the drive train straight they should be ok. The global automotive market is in the hole, but the potential purchasers of the roadster are not price sensitive (see TTAC article on increased Rolls Royce sales).
That said, this comparison is entirely unfair to Preston Tucker. He designed a mass market car from scratch, leased the largest factory in the world at the time to build it, and was taken down by the government, not the market. Tesla, if they survive, will have only accomplished the feat of putting an electric engine in an Elise, something they are not even the first to do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zytek_Lotus_Elise .
From Wikipedia: “Otto Kerner, the US Attorney who had aggressively investigated Tucker for fraud, intriguingly became the first Federal appellate judge in history to be jailed — for stock fraud.”
Also: “During the trouble Tucker faced while trying to promote his car and get it into production, he claimed that the ‘Big Three’ automakers were deliberately attempting to sabotage his efforts, through the influence of Detroit Senator Homer Ferguson, who is commonly held responsible for initiating the SEC’s pursuing of Tucker’s business.”
I try not to let a Tesla story go without posting a comment referring to the parallels of the Tucker saga.
The difference is, Tucker had an engaging guy behind the enterprise (oh, and he actually built a few cars).
Where’s the hook in the Tesla story? The compelling protagonist? The conspiracy against the company? This Tesla farce will never make a good movie at this rate…
(Of course, I didn’t think the movie Who Killed the Electric Car would be so engaging, either….)
If it’s any consolation to Tucker, on a day when Ford is trading at ~$1.92, GM is trading at ~$3.32 and private ownership is hiding a value of about zero for Chrysler a Tucker stock certificate costs $295.
http://www.scripophily.net/tucautcor19.html
I know its simplistic as s***, but seriously, how hard can it be to splice the equivalent of little more than an electric golf cart powertrain into the back end of virtually any front drive car?
Before I ponder today’s question, I must dawn a fedora. Pondering earlier times requires the use of fasion accessories of earlier times.
As exciting as it would be to see Tesla succeed (the company would, after all, have some brand reconition in the upcoming “everyman’s EV” showdown), I don’t believe it will happen. And this will doom Tesla to the footnoted of automotive history, alongside Tucker, Bricklin, and many others who tried and failed.
By the way, if you ever get a chance to see a Tucker in person, take it. It truly is a beautiful car.
Yeah, there are a lot of disturbing similarities between Tesla and Tucker. Also the Davis and the Dale.
I’ve got a brochure from the Dale……LA Auto Show
It all sounds so familiar.
I don’t think Tucker set out to purposely defraud people, but I do think that his promises got a bit ahead of reality AND that the status quo did everything it its power to quash him. Tesla seems to be failing mostly by itself, and there is no evidence of competitors or the government trying to thwart Tesla.
It is, however, a bit unnerving that there has not been a successful automobile manufacturing start up in the United States in over 100 years now. Countless people and companies have tried, but none of the US based ones have survived. Meanwhile, multiple Japanese, Korean, Chinese & Indian companies have all entered the fray with success.
It does make a person wonder why.
@ John Horner
I agree about Tucker, at least to a point. I’ve worked with people like him before; enthusiastic promoters who get so caught up in PR hype that they start believing their own press releases.
The major similarity to Tesla is I think the double-edged sword of PR: you can leverage PR to try to drum up investment dollars, but it also raises the pressure to live up to the hype, and the consequences for what might otherwise be modest production problems.
Henry Ford said, “Nobody ever built a reputation on what they are going to do,” and that seems to apply in both cases.
So? Who will play Elon Musk in the movie?
One more difference – I bet Preston Tucker would have had the balls to give TTAC a tester car.
Quote: “ no_slushbox :
November 10th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
One more difference – I bet Preston Tucker would have had the balls to give TTAC a tester car.”
Brilliant !! You had me laughing out loud !!
Jesus, Lieberman!
You make a good point but weren’t we all hoping that someone would make a viable electric sports car?
Even if it’s true, I had hoped to ignore any bad news about Tesla. If they fail it will be from your jinx.
Sigh.
“So? Who will play Elon Musk in the movie?”
I’d assume the kid from the “Dude, You’re Getting a Dell” commercials.
Of course, I’m also assuming it will be a strait to DVD release…