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Tucker is rear-engine, an air-cooled Franklin flat 6 highly modified for conventional water cooling, plus other changes. When Franklin exited the car business, the engine plant was purchased with an eye towards using them in aircraft - if you ever examine a Korean War vintage helicopter, chances are you'll see "Franklin" embossed on the valve rocker covers.

Don't have any familiarity with Cord ring/pinion arrangements, either the L-29 or 810/812 series though cross sectional views of them are plentiful in the old car literature.

As others have said previously, Google is a great resource. See Preselector Gearbox and Armstrong Siddeley preselector.

Hi

Regardless of how the Tucker convertible came to be, the handling of it's publicity with the objective of a huge auction sale price is a textbook example of hype.

What seems like more than a year we've been seeing teasers, website leads, Ebay listing with outrageous BIN, appearances at major collector car meets, now the OCW Russo and Steele spread.

And where does all this culminate? BIG $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Auction SALE Price!!!!

It's an interesting workout but not at all worth what it's hyped to be worth. Sadly enough, real, historic, legitimate collector cars go begging for an appreciative owner for preservation and restoration.

Off the soapbox!

Steve

Sadly enough, real, historic, legitimate collector cars go begging for an appreciative owner for preservation and restoration.

Amen to that!

I'm no expert on Tucker (nor on Packard for that matter) but when the movie about "Tucker" came out, they also put out in paperback a book about Tucker called "The Incredible Tin Goose" which I bought, read, and still have. Wish I could remember the author but you can probably still buy it on the Internet somewhere. I also have the movie on DVD, which is good. My best recollection on transmissions was that they started out with old Cord transmissions but also hired an engineer named Rice who came up with his own transmission, which they also used, which was called the R-1. For what it is worth.
Ken

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Well if 1 of 51 isn't historic, or worthy of preservation, or of needing restoration than what does?

I am sure the checkbook restoration/ Ego stroking millionaires club are foaming at the mouth to drive that onto the show field. Who else will have one? The Tucker owners before would quibble over their cars being most rare because of the color it was painted, or what # car it was.

This Tucker is special. And the young gentlemen who bought and restored it put his whole financial future/ business on the line to do something with this car that nobody else has, actually building A factory designed one off convertible that was started and never completed because the company went out of business.

I think the Hype is well deserved.

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I would have to agree with that. The thing about Tucker is that they actually went ahead and produced them in a way that would have eventually been a sustainable assembly line. So it's like a very short production run, and thus built up more of a "mystique" faster than it would have otherwise. Plus the entertaining story behind the venture and the "what-if" scenario push the marque beyond a curiosity into a truly desirable collectible.

FWIW I did see a Tuker in person that was basically being stored in a corner of a museum out on I90 in South Dakota. Don't remember the name of the museum but it's easy to find, with signs all along the freeway in both directions. The car is likely long gone by now anyway.

The fact that the car was there was advertised on the museum's billboards, of course, and the lack of any attempt to make it presentable may be an indication of something I've assumed-- many of the very special cars that aren't really ready for the show circuit wind up getting free storage at smaller museums in exchange for the promotional value they bring.

I wonder if anyone on this forum has experience with finding inexpensive storage space by allowing museums to show their car(s) between shows or just during the winter months. Lots of little car museums around. One in the little town of Brooten MN was unabashedly a storage building, but the cars were nice and there were information placards on most.

There's quite a discussion going on concerning the authenticity of the Tucker convertible. It seems like it was made from the car they wrecked on the track while testing.

http://www.tuckerclub.org/bbs3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1424

I read the Tucker thread. It seems a few have their undie's up in a bunch over whether or not this is a "real" Tucker. If it truly is a matter of finishing what the Tucker team started, Then it should be held in the same regard as a factory prototype/concept. Is the Packard Predictor a "real" Packard? If you only look at it from the perspective that it had to roll of the assembly line in Detroit. (Hell, it wasn't even made in this country) Then no it's not. But we all know that's not the case. If the guys at Benchmark Classics can show provenance, no problem in my book.

Now Ida Automotive builds "fake"Tuckers:

http://www.robidaconcepts.com/page/page/1918153.htm

Not "real", but still very cool.

Thanks for leading us to the Tucker discussion Turbopackman. According to Benchmark Classics, the car that rolled over was scrapped a long time ago. Very interesting arguments. Wonder where the truth really lies...