Tucker Automobiles: The Cammack Tucker Collection
Permanent
Location: Cammack Tucker Gallery
The Museum’s Cammack Gallery is home to the world’s most extensive Tucker collection. The gallery, named for Tucker historian and collector David Cammack, displays an interactive exhibit chronicling Preston Tucker’s vision, determination, and struggles to build the “Car of Tomorrow.”
Only 51 originals
Through his Chicago-based start-up, Tucker set out to revolutionize the automobile industry. He designed and built 51 innovative ’48 vehicles unmatched by other offerings on the post-war American market. The Cammack Gallery is home to Tucker models #1001, #1022, #1026, along with the Tucker factory test chassis and engine prototypes.
Innovation ahead of its time
Always an inventor, Tucker introduced his rear-engined sedan that boasted an array of safety features and comfort innovations that were ahead of their time. Thanks to the creativity of Tucker expert Rob Ida, the Tucker exhibit features an interactive Tucker where visitors get behind the wheel and experience Tucker’s innovations, including the “cyclops headlight, first dashboard radios, and center steering wheel.
The stuff of movies
The 1988 movie “Tucker: The Man and His Dream” brought the Tucker story to the big screen. Francis Ford Coppola’s tribute portrayed the irrepressibly optimistic inventor in an enjoyable biopic relevant even today. The Museum’s exhibit includes one of the fiberglass Tucker reproduction cars used in the movie.
Beyond the vehicles
Preston Tucker’s lifelong love affair with the automobile had a remarkable, sometimes controversial impact on the automotive industry. The Tucker exhibit invites visitors into his office where car business and care building come together. Preston Tucker’s desk, mechanicals, and automobilia help to define the man behind the legacy.
“A man who has once gotten automobiles into his blood can never give them up. . .”
Preston Tucker, American History Illustrated
Tucker Model: #1001
Engine: Franklin O-335, six-cylinder horizontally opposed, 334 cubic inches,166 hp
Tucker #1001 was the first car off the prototype production line. It utilizes the Tucker Y-1 transmission, a Tucker-modified Cord 810/812 front-wheel-drive unit. Tucker #1001 sports its original paint color Tucker Maroon 600 color scheme.
Tucker Model: #1022
Engine: Franklin O-335, six-cylinder horizontally opposed, 334 cubic inches,166 hp
Tucker #1022, utilizes the Tucker Y-1 transmission, a Tucker-modified Cord 810/812 unit, and features the improved rubber sandwich suspension design. It is painted in its original Tucker Grey (silver) 500 color scheme.
Tucker Model: #1026
Engine: Franklin O-335, six-cylinder horizontally opposed, 334 cubic inches,166 hp
Often considered the most valuable production Tucker, #1026 is the only remaining complete Tucker with a “Tuckermatic” automatic transmission.
Museum Collection: Permanent Loan Courtesy of David Cammack
The Tucker Automobile Club of America is part of the AACA Museum, Inc.
