Tucker Automobile Corporation 1948 - Preston Tucker's Printed Signature on Certificate

Beautifully engraved Certificate from the famous Tucker Corporation issued in 1947. This historic document was printed by the Security Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it. This item has the printed signature of Preston Tucker and is over 62 years old.






Printed Signature on Certificate



Preston Tucker, an automotive engineer who helped to design Miller racing cars before World War II, almost realized his ambition of producing a "completely new" passenger automobile after the war. He and his business associates leased a former Dodge aircraft plant in Chicago for this purpose. Fifty-one nearly identical Tucker automobiles, which were designed by Tucker, Alex Tremulis and J. Gordon Lippincott and Company, were built in 1948 before the Tucker Corporation became embroiled in fraud allegations. Shortly thereafter, the company was forced to go out of business.

The Tucker automobile had many advanced, innovative features, from its fastback shape to its swiveling center headlight and independent four-wheel suspension. Enhanced passenger safety was one of the Tucker's principal features. It had a pop-out windshield, padded dashboard, and a place where the front-seat passenger could crouch in the event of a collision.

The Tucker never entered full production, but its design epitomized automotive trends that were new and significant in the immediate postwar years: avant-garde styling, innovative mechanical features, awakening interest in passenger safety, and efforts by small manufacturers to capture a larger share of the new-car market. The Tucker was an exaggeration of these trends and evidence that the desire for change was strong enough to move some fairly radical ideas from the drawing board to the production stage.

Preston Tucker intended to mass-produce a "car of the future" with advanced safety, styling, and engineering features. The automobile has its engine in the rear, an area where the front passenger can crouch during a collision, and a center headlight that turned with the steering wheel. The sedan's most striking feature is its avant-garde styling, developed by Alex Tremulis and J. Gordon Lippincott and Company. Its features-- including pop-up tail lights and irregularly shaped windows--give it a futuristic appearance even today. The Tucker never went into actual production because a federal investigation into the company's management practices led to its collapse.