Preston Tucker launched his car company after World War II. One of the biggest events in his company’s story was the unveiling of his prototype Tucker 48?sometimes called the Tin Goose. Tucker’s enterprise ended a few years later, and for a decade or so, the 51 cars he completed were not considered all that valuable. Today, however, a top-end Tucker 48 might auction for more than $2 million. (Here’s one that recently sold for $1.35 million.) Still, there was a time when you might see a Tucker stuck in the mud behind a barn.
Occasionally, copies of these photographs show up on the internet with the suggestion that you might still be able to find yourself a Tucker stuck in the mud somewhere, but that is really not the case. First, these photos were taken in the early 1970s, and Tucker experts can now tell us where every Tucker automobile extant resides. Along with the Tin Goose, there were 50 production Tucker 48s built. There is one “missing” Tucker 48, but it was almost certainly destroyed, as pieces of it have surfaced.
The photos here are of the Tin Goose, taken behind a barn in Pennsylvania. Near it rested the front half of another Tucker?#1018?one of the few 48s, which no longer exists intact. The Tin Goose was rescued from this field and restored shortly after these pictures were taken, although it was painted maroon instead of the red it wore at its world premiere. The bumpers, which went missing sometime before or during its slumber ...