Yes, either that, or joining Studebaker and Packard, and then disappearing by the mid-1960s. At best they would've remained a low-volume specialist brand catering to an ever-shrinking niche, like the remarkably similar rear-engine Tatra cars.
People need to understand the context of Tucker. Due to WW2, the Big Three were essentially building the same cars in 1946 they were in 1940. Due to moving production back to the consumer market, price gouging was rampant by dealers. Tucker did a traveling road show to show off the car and my dad saw one in person. People were literally wowed by the car. As shown, they were beautiful and had a number of safety features the Big Three didn't. The Big Three literally had a monopoly on the global car market for years following WW2 and a lot of the cars coming out of Detroit for decades were junk. The Big Three destroyed Tucker because they feared him.
At the time Tucker was around the market was glutted with car companies the big three era wasn't until the 80's after AMC finally failed. Tucker wasn't going to last much longer than it did especially once imports started to hit dealers around the 60's. Volvo and Mercedes would have killed it off as their focus was safety and quality.
@@greyfox78569 Those events were yet to be unseen. Americans returning from the war wanted cars....something new and fresh. AMC passed due to a number of reasons. If Tucker had been able to secure financing it would have stood a good chance.
@@greyfox78569 Patriotic Americans would've bought his safer more cutting edge vehicles rather anything from overseas and even the big three to some degree.
What would the Hudson brand look like through the years? I'm interested in how you could manage to take the famous Hudson Hornet grill shape and translate it to more modern vehicles.
The one problem that Hudson had was that its step down bodies were harder to retool for the design changes that were deemed necessary to compete in the 50s.
There is no way of knowing. For example, start with the 1949 Ford. Ford's all new postwar car. How is there any continuation with the 1959, 1969, 1979 etc designs. Safe to say, if Hudson were still around, their cars would bear no resemblance to the 1954 model which were the last true Hudson.
Well in a roundabout way it is: Kaiser and Willys eventually merged, and that union circuitously became the Jeep brand, still going under Stellantis...
Kaiser bought Willys, Nash-Kelvinator merged with Hudson to form American Motors, American Motors bought Kaiser, Chrysler bought Kaiser to get the Jeep name, and after several corporate failures, the wreckage of Chrysler got folded into the autmotive rubbish bin of the world, Stellantis.
@@shoveI Georgia rpmance: I met her in Metter Went to Winder to find her. Went to decatur to date her, And finally to Tucker To meet her parents. --- Attributed to a stand-up rotine on the Bicycle Ride Across Georgia talent show some years ago.
I look at Tucker as being the American Porsche or Tatra. I think they would have kept body styles and drivetrains longer and advertised against the other companies as not having planned obsolescence to earn loyal customers and be a more ethical company. I think design would be evolutionary like Porsche.
Makes considerable sense. (And it's easy to imagine both Tucker himself and designer Tremulis being inspired by the spectacularly bold late 30s Tatras.)
Ahhhhh....the Bricklin SV-1, one of my all-time favorites. When I was a kid, one of kids on my baseball team would arrive to practice and games in one of those babies. His dad was a well-to-do real estate developer.
Never forget though that Malcom Bricklin was the man behind the Yugo and other failed auto ventures. His secret mission in life seemed to be forcing everyone to walk to work.
It's almost like the question should be asked the other way around: "What if the Tesla was a modern interpretation of a Tucker?" Another wonderful video, Ed! Keep up the good work! 👍
Why, when you look at "The Industry Leader" from the side (And especially looking at the roof line...), I'm seeing a direct copy of the first generation Mazda RX-7? Perhaps one should go all the way and put a Mazda rotor engine in this car?
Tesla IS the modern Tucker (if Tucker actually survived). Ahead of its time ( at least in the beginning), and yet borderline fraudulent with it's over-promises and the risky reliance on pre-orders. With a big weird loud hype man at the head. There's a lot of parallels.
A desirable feature of the flush-mounted door handles would be for them to pop out when a crash is detected/airbags deploy. My dad used to work in the fire department and Tesla's door handles are despised for how they make getting the doors open more difficult in an hurry/emergency. Seems like something Tucker would pay attention to.
That would make a cool video. My guess is that since Saturn did get involved with the EV1, GM would let Saturn design an EV lineup while hoping that they would *FAIL* because of the "Nobody would buy an EV" mindset. At the same time, GM will offer ICE engines and maybe the hybrids would be offered in sedans.compact cars such as the Chevy Sonic, Cruz, or Spark. For the upscale people, GM would offer a Cadillac ATS hybrid. GM is suddenly caught off guard as Saturn becomes the go-to EV alternative to Tesla due to cheaper price and availability of Saturn service centers. GM then scrambles to adopt more hybrid/EV models while trying to downplay Saturn's products since GM is gonna act like GM and undermine any brand that's not a Chevy or a Cadillac.
@@stanmarcusgtv That's basically all Buick is now. Saturn was a great idea at first, then it got enshittenned by bean counters. The brand would've made a lot of sense as GM's EV division.
GM didn't kill Saturn...the US Government did. when people stepped in after GM's chapter 11, they realized they'd become a Finance company with a car arm, and pruned everything off.
Late 2006 up to 2010? Yes sure, but the rest was mostly their own work, also, they did rebadge the Solstice, and Pontiac did rebadge the Holden Commodore to make the G8, but ultimately, they all rebdaged Vauxhall and Opel. @@stanmarcusgtv
Tremulis had drawn up the 48's successor, the Talisman, while the 48s were still in engineering. From the side it somewhat resembled a mid-70s Pontiac LeMans. It was never built, of course. The wild roadster rendering shown near the start of this video is the Alexis de Sakhnoffsky-designed Tucker Carioca (and Ed mentions it by name later), intended for production in Brazil, where Tucker sought to reestablish Tucker Motors after the Illinois-based venture imploded. It was never actually built either. The "straight-across" headlights had appeared on a built (and surviving) concept car, the Brooks Stevens Studebaker Sceptre, built in 1962 in Italy on a Lark chassis, and intended to replace the Hawk line. Of course the idea saw full production on the mid-1980s Mercury Sable...The "EV Tucker" reminds me very much (visually) of another built concept car, the Bugatti EB112, part of Romano Artioli's ill-starred 1990s Bugatti revival attempt. As to Tucker surviving to the present day, as with Studebaker and the rest of the independents it's highly unlikely; the car industry (like all industries and more than most excepting airlines) has consolidated too much for that. Plus, Tucker himself was a loose cannon and in many ways his own worst enemy. These what-if videos are interesting, though; keep them coming...
That's a really intriguing one, as Packard is perhaps the only independent carmaker that might really still be around now despite all the consolidation in the industry. Why? Packard could have leveraged its luxury heritage to become a preeminent ultra-lux brand, a kind of American Rolls Royce. By deft use of off the shelf mechanicals and clever design, a standalone Packard could have remained profitable. In real life of course they sank themselves in 1955 by taking over Studebaker, which by then was becoming hellbent on exiting the car business...
@@stevetournay6103 it's more troubling than that it seems like they really wanted to kill themselves off from the 40s by chasing Buick, instead of building on their strengths.
Three guys are talking first guy says he is going to get his wife frazer and amaze her . Second guy says he is going to get Kizer and surprise her third guy says he going to get his wife a Tucker😅😅😅
Fantastic! I suspect Tucker would have become part of AMC or Studebaker/Packard had the company remained afloat. Maybe AMC would still be with us had this happened. It’s fun to imagine!
Some months ago I thought I was dreaming when I saw a tucker being unloaded from an enclosed car carrier on a narrow road in Marlboro New Jersey USA, then I researched and discovered there is a custom garage there that restored the Tucker. I only had seconds to spot it as I was exiting Costco.
They're the best ones you did in Automation by far, Ed! As a Brazilian, the Carioca (which is a Brazilian word, the gentile from the city of Rio de Janeiro) gives me some futuristic vibes from our Miura Models. Don't mistake it with the Lamborghini Miura, it's a brand. The Brazilian Miuras were small futuristic coupes and roadsters from the late 70s and 80s, which were very technologic for the time and had some voice feedback commands. Also, they were between the first models to have ABS brakes here. Preston Tucker tried to keep Tucker alive here in Brazil, but didn't succeed. He died before his dream car started to even be prototyped.
Beautiful imaginings of Tucker creations. Your Tucker "Charger" is lacking side marker lighting. I image a mirror version of the inboard turn signals, outboard on the fenders. Also implementing the 5 mph bumper standard prior to 73.
Nicely put together video, Ed! I really doubt that if Tucker had survived that they would have stuck with the rear engine design for very long. From what I've read about the development of the Tucker, the Engineers were having a challenging time developing the rear suspension and driveline for the rear engine. There would also be some issues with trying to create a safe handling car with a big cast iron engine at the rear. We all know what happened with the Corvair, and that had a relatively lightweight air cooled engine.
You know that the Tucker family retained ownership of Aircooled Motors/Franklin Engine Company in Syracuse, NY until 1961. I think they would have continued to use their own engines and certainly would have retained Franklin, if they continued for as long as they continued to use internal combustion.
That whole episode with Franklin is fascinating on a bunch of levels: it was Tucker's one really successful acquisition, and although Franklin by then made aircraft engines, the company had begun in luxury cars, and Tucker Motors could well have sprouted a hi-lux division legitimately reviving the Franklin name on a car...
@@stevetournay6103 possibly, Franklin was a name that even by the 50s had been out of production a really long time. As we saw with Stutz, I suppose it could happen but, it probably wouldn't have even had as much name cache as reviving something like Mercer or Doble.
The only reason Franklin stopped in 1975 was that the company had been sold to Poland. The O-335 family, O-350, was in production till the late 90s in Poland.
That's what I was thinking. Tucker bought the company, cancelled their existing contracts, and re-engineered the air-cooled engine to be water-cooled. I never understood why he cancelled their existing contracts before he needed to start building his own engines, and maybe even kept some contact work to have another income stream. Considering all this, I think he would have expanded the flat-six layout. Buying the Olds aluminum V8 would have made sense, but any V8 engine should have had 4 tailpipes per side rather than 3.
I like that certain eras have their own new and eccentric car company aimed at changing if not the entire industry but certain parts of it. Basically, the only ones that worked out were Ford and Tesla, whilst the rest simply vanished. That’s why I think that in a world where Tucker Corporation survived, there would have been no DeLorean or Tesla - their cars would simply be Tuckers, as basically shown in this video. Imagine a Tucker starring in Back to the Future movies or a whole network of Tucker Superchargers across the US
This is a wonderful video, like 50's sci-fi! I'm and EMU graduate that caught the tail end of the muscle car era; first job pumping (up to 101 octane) gas at the Sunoco station by the four corners off Telegraph Rd. Learning folk lore about Preston Tucker in Ypsilanti made it my heart felt home, always routing for the underdog...this video is most satisfying...thank you!
Nice! My aunt's Mazda CX-30 has headlights like the Tucker's in the sense that the headlights turn along with the wheels when the car is steering. The Citroen SM had this feature as well (sadly the headlights were fixed for the U.S. market). I would love to see the history of the SUV soon! Please keep up the great work! :)
Had it survived the great scandal, I think Tucker might have been a moderate success for a time, since the big three were simply grinding out old prewar designs that the public was tired of. However the big three would no doubt have upped their game by the early 1950's, throwing huge resources into new designs. Eventually I believe Tucker would try to join forces with another company, possible a European company like Volvo or a dying American brand like Studebaker.
Connecting with Stude sank Packard in real life, so Tucker wouldn't have stood a chance there. (And I'm a Stude guy. Love the cars, I have one of them myself, but the company was run into the ground, ultimately deliberately as a carmaker...)
There is something else to remember after the war ended there were things that even the big three would have to deal with, Right after world war ended GM would have to endure a strike, Ford was still run by a crotchety old man who knew nothing bout business and the way that Ford motor company was run back then well, Ford defenely needed alot of reoriganzation, Chrysler fell innto a conseritiive design point of view that it took Virgil Exner to get. Chrysler back to design relvance!!!!!.@5610winston
.... and then GM and Ford got into a nasty price war right about 1953 that didn't hurt neither but took it's toll on Conseritive Chrysler and the Independent s like Studebaker, Packard, Nash, Hudson Kaiser, Willys. And if he would have made it this far TUCKER, In the end , What George Mason of Nash Kelvenator wanted to do was a merger as far back as 1948-49 between the major independents to make an even stronger American Motors and that's why I always say Masons untimely death in late 1954 was one of the most important things that happened in the busness of the American Automobile in the 1950s . Had all three mergers funneled themselves into American Motors there really would have been a strong number four car maker ( Provided that Chrysler continued to get their act together with Virgil Exner).This I've always felt what should have happened instead of what did, And for a future subject whatta' bout George Mason himself He sounds like a pretty interesting Chachter!!!!,"Sorry if I got long winded😂😂😂😂😂
Love these videos. Truly appreciate the amount of work you put in to build them on automation. I can barely get headlights on without having an aneurysm.
Tucker Motors plant, which was the Dodge Chicago Aircraft Engine Plant where they built engines for B-29 Bombers later became (and is still) Ford City Mall in the West Lawn neighborhood, very close to Chicago-Midway Airport.
Challenge accepted. 1) What do you think revived Studebakers &/or Avantis might look like? 2) How about Oldsmobile &/or Pontiac "design language" brought back from the dead? 3) Lastly, turning to the once great Chrysler Motors, I would love to see you work your magic on reviving the DeSoto &/or Imperial marques. Although I missed your Edsel episode (but plan on finding it), I thoroughly enjoyed this fantasy trip focusing on the elusive Tucker. Well done!
Great video as always ed! I love this series. You might already know this but there's this exhaust cutout fixture in automation, i think that'd be quite useful
my thought about these tucker cars is they probably would have made it this far if they had a friend, a buddy to make the mass market car of tomorrow today, while for a pretty penny you can have tomorrow, with a tucker. hell that might be a tag line "You can have tomorrow with a Tucker" I think it would have survived if it formed with AMC, AMC however would likely remain three separate brands instead of becoming one.
I think you are doing very well with these 'allo allo' reaction videos, so please do continue. The French 'onion seller' in the UK was always a mystery to me. He seemed to turn up from nowhere and many questions arose, such as where and how did he replenish his stock and where was he living and how could he survive, let alone make any profit on selling just a few onions? One other piece of UK classic humor directly relating to France and the British attitudes to the French is a comedy film made in the 1960s called "Carry On - Don't Lose Your Head". Still quite a hilarious and absurd parody of the French Revolution. Insults and jokes from and to the French and British about their habits and way of life fly thick and fast throughout the film. If you get a chance to watch it I think you will find it interesting. A reaction from you would be even better but perhaps there could be some 'copyright issues'. Bon chance!
Very well thought out Ed. Impressive information. It takes time to think these things out and the impact it would have on the industry. The fact you explained the details made it interesting. The one from the 80's was forward thinking like Chrysler Imperial was and the GCC that was in Buick. The airbag as you know was a 70's thing. Thank you for the video and sharing this effort.
Hi Ed love watching your content it’s super fascinating and informative, as an American viewer it’s always cool to look from the outside, in. If you haven’t covered it yet maybe do a video on the history/growth of the electric car industry
I think that Tucker would have kept using Aircraft engines, the Flat 6, possibly a Flat 8, possibly turboharged and/or downsized to a Flat 4 later for economy. I think Tucker would have used Turbines otherwise until they got to the point of electric or hybrid vehicles.
Using the Franklin aircraft engine was urgent desperation, they had to get a running vehicle as fast as possible. Aircraft engines are very different in design, they’re air-cooled, the crankshafts are comparatively massive, the cylinders individually bolted on (there’s no engine block), they use 100 octane avgas, and they run at low RPM (max 2500). They’re made to run at one high power setting (75%) for hours at a time, very different from how auto engines are used. They are also hand assembled individually, and so are very expensive. They are very reliable and tough, that’s a plus. The cost of one Franklin engine would be twice as much as the rest of the car. There’s no way tuckers could have gone into production using the Franklin aircraft engines. Tucker bought Franklin, so he apparently had some ideas to make his own engines, but engineering just one new engine (much less a whole series) is as big a project as making a car. And the production volumes would still have been tiny, and so the cost very high, even of an engine redesigned for a car. This was a massive issue that he never even got to. A tucker would have cost as much as a rolls Royce with Franklin aircraft engines, and no one would have bought one.
Your Automation desings are getting better and better. I am starting to experimenting with 3d features and interiors, and its very time consuming but also rewarding process
This seems very well done. I like the look of the potential Tucker cars, and they seem quite period correct. Obviously, this is just one of an infinite number of possible outcomes.
Awesome video with very nice renditions of tuckers. I wanted to ask if you make any B-roll shots of these cars running in Beamng as Automation is compatible with Beamng. Again amazing video keep up the awesome work.
This is quite a impressive episode, Tucker could be the fourth of the big US automakers if they stayed so long and survived as today that can make the others a excellent run for the money
Ed: As a first generation Buick Riviera fanatic, I think these are brilliant...you nailed every one of them. Don't be too hard on yourself on the EV, though...I think it's fantasmic, especially the colour.
Beautiful designs Ed, especially the '68. Classy, sporty, muscular and luxurious all at once. I know it's not a muscle car or racer, but I almost feel like it deserves some redwall or redline tires.
Excellent job on this Ed! The only thing I would disagree with is that I don’t think Tucker would have gone to a more boxy design in the 1950s from his sweep design in 1948. I think design was a key differentiator for his company and he would have continued with a sweep design throughout the 1950s. I appreciate the time and effort that you put into this episode and in this entire series.
Here is another what if for you - what if turbine engines had caught on? Ford, GM and of course Chrysler all explored the concept. Ford did it in a truck, I think. Could be interesting to play with.
-In my theory or "dream", VAG of Germany would produce a new division, headquartered in Detroit. They would produce small sports sedans called "Tucker" based upon the platform underpinning the Porsche 992/982 cars but stretched into a four door, and powered by a rear mounted 9A1 flat 6 engine from the 911/Cayman/Boxster cars. Later cars could be electric and based upon the Taycan. Styling would be by descendants of Preston Tucker himself, with help from Porsche designers. Great video!
Wow, what a great job you did! All are spot on. The 80's sports might be a flat six for packaging purposes so as to make room for the Flux Sat Nav CPU. Can't wait for the next-gen Tucker with a Hydrogen Fuel Cell!
An old friend still owns one of these bad boys. I've lost touch with him, but had the privilege of turning a wrench on it. It wasn't a runner back in the 80s, when we were buds, so I never got to ride in it. Love this vid. Looks like even Tucker couldn't make those early 50s cars look good!
AWESOME VID! A wacky idea = a what if ? AMC motors had hit a home run or two in the 70's while Chrysler continued to fail only for AMC to buy them out in the 80's
The new 'What If' series by E.A.R.! I like it! I think you should do more of these. Hudson is a good one. Also some companies from Europe that aren't around anymore. Like Saab and some of the companies that were combined to make British Layland. Even a few companies that are still around in name, but not at all associated with their heritage. Like MG and Jaguar. There are so many car companies that made beautiful, and/or great cars, but for one reason or another didn't survive. I've never been to Australia. But when Holden shut down it made me upset
I love what this is. I’ve always enjoyed creating something like this on paper. But since I heard about this software from this morning I thought it would be cool to do what loved on the computer. I’d personally pick the Tucker Torpedo. It looks sexy and the name torpedo sounds cool. Well done
This is probably my favorite what-if so far. I love the idea of an American safety-first car company like Tucker existing. A shame we didn't get this hypothetical Tucker universe. Our car safety laws would be way better.
Excellent take on the Tuckers. How about a What If International Harvester continued making light trucks and SUVs past the 70s? Their pickups were ended in '75 and the Scout lasted until 1980, but with the revival of the Scout brand as an EV with ties to Volkswagen (same parent company that owns International heavy trucks today), something to bridge the gap would be neat. Naturally they would have expanded the Scout line into a compact pickup to compete in the 80s and 90s, with the Travelall SUV still competing with the Wagoneer and Suburban. Their full size pickups would need a full redesign in the 90s to follow the trend of making pickups a family vehicle, something they pioneered in the 60s by introducing the crew cab. As a brand with an agrarian focus, they might put more emphasis on utility in the 2000s, like integrated bedside toolboxes or plenty of factory ordered options for farm use, maybe tipping flat bed with fold-down sides like is so popular in the rest of the world.
I really enjoy these "what if" series. As much as I'd love to see Tucker alive and well, I suspect the company would eventually gone out of business. The postwar American car market was a very rough place for smaller manufacturers. Hudson was folded into American Motors as a junior partner and for all practical purposes ceased to exist. Packard joined Studebaker and produced its last model in 1958. Studebaker's bold gambit with the Avanti didn't pay off and their last cars, a Canadian variant of their compact Lark with Chevrolet engines was built in 1966. American Motors Corporation played a good game but didn't have the resources to build the cars needed by a changing market. Their last car, an AMC Eagle was built in 1987. The American car market is a high stakes poker tournament. Every new car release is a huge gamble, the big three had the resources to experiment and cover their inevitable losses. The small fry were hit harder by missteps and were eventually knocked out of the market. The only way I could imagine Tucker surviving would be for it to quickly become the dominant small manufacturer and absorb the resources of failing small manufacturers like Kaiser, Hudson and Packard. If it had become big enough to make it part of the big four, then it would have had a chance. Otherwise...
I think you nailed it with that 2020 Tucker Torpedo EV! Beautiful end to end as a coupe, and probably just as beautiful as the Lucid Air, which is my opinion, the most beautiful sedan on the market! Now, let's see you work your magic on Oldsmobile and Saturn (which in my opinion, should have been an Oldsmobile all along). Great episode! 🐰
I’d be interested in seeing Packard. It’s my dream to one day have a 1956 Executive. That was one of their last cars you can use for reference and also the one-off Packard Twelve from 1999.
Fun fact: a 1948 Tucker qualified for entry into NASCAR in the early 1950s but for the actual race wasn’t able to start (I believe it sheered its own half shaft.) It was the 4th pre-production Tucker and I believe is the oldest known surviving NASCAR (if you count its qualifying run and discount its DNS for the official race.) Today, it’s in the Toyota museum in Japan.
Here would be an interesting one to do, not neccessarily a "what if they were still made" but also a "what if they continued and increased their quality", good old Saturn. Something about big motor corporations' budget brands, like Saturn to GM, Scion to Toyota, seems like something that didn't take off as well as it could today.
