Re: Packard in wartime

Posted by Rusty O\'Toole On 2010/7/21 18:23:57

Thanks for the video on the Tucker Combat Car. Very interesting to see it in action.

It looks very modern for the 40s, more like a dune buggy from the 60s especially the tires and body.

I never knew it was approved for service or manufactured in quantity, I thought there was only a few prototypes. But the end of the film shows a row of combat cars at the Rahway New Jersey factory, I count at least 20 of them.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Later:

Further research shows that the Dutch bought a number of combat cars, which were made by the American Armament Corporation in Rahway.

Before the order could be delivered Holland was over run by the German army.

Wonder what happened to them? Tucker offered them to the American armed forces so some must have been sent out for testing. Wonder if they were all scrapped?

------------------------------------------------------------

Still later:

On the Tucker BBS there is a statement from Frank Tucker, that the combat car prototype was taken to New Orleans and got left at the Higgins Tucker Boat Works during the war. It was probably scrapped.

There is further speculation that the Dutch deal was never signed and the cars never built. And that all those cars in the publicity film are a matte shot or trick photograph.

So, the scene at the beginning of the Tucker movie where he takes the family for ice cream in 1945 could not have happened, the car was no longer in Michigan by that time and probably no longer existed.