Vanderbilt Cup Races

Tucker #1027

Car Number: 1027
Ownership: N/A
Location: Parts in various locations
Original Paint Code/Color: 200 Waltz Blue
Current Paint Color: None
Original Interior Color: 920 Blue
Current Interior Color: None
Body Number: 1027
Original Engine Number: 33522
Current Engine Number: None
Transmission Type: Y1

The most well-known of the missing Tuckers was #1027 which rolled over during testing at the 2-1/2-mile oval Indianapolis Racetrack in September 1948. Depicted in the movie, 'Tucker The Man and His Dream', seven Tucker sedans, fresh from the firm’s pilot production line, were each driven the 180 miles from the Cicero Avenue plant in Chicago to the Indy track.

The vehicles were driven continuously through a range of different speed tests day and night, with stops made only for fuel and driver swaps. In the end, a total of 13,134 miles — averaging 1,876 miles per car — and a vast amount of data was recorded during the test. The company’s “Engineering Observation Report” dated Oct. 18, 1948, describes what took place with Tucker No. 1027 during the tests.

(Photos and info courtesy of The Tucker Club of America, oldcarsweekly.com and the lifelong research conducted by Richard Jones, TACA co-founder and senior Tucker historian, and, more recently, the work of college dean and legal scholar Larry Clark, except where captioned)

Tucker #1027 ran the first 1,360 miles of the test traveling counter-clockwise, the normal direction used in circle track racing, and at set speeds of 35, 55 and 65 mph.

At 3 a.m., Tucker’s chief engineer, Eddie Offutt, the legendary Indy 500 mechanic who had worked for Harry Miller, took over driving Tucker No. 1027. After Offutt’s first fuel stop, he returned to the track driving clockwise — the reversed direction from earlier — and maintained speeds of 85-90 mph.

The report indicates that after several laps at these speeds, the engine died (attributed to high-octane racing fuel causing a vapor lock) just as Offutt entered the northeast turn. The sudden loss of power and centrifugal force going into the turn “threw the car into a spin causing the rear tire to blow. This sent the car off the track and into the infield grass where it again turned and headed back on the track, turning over twice — once entirely off the ground — before it righted itself.”

The car was brought back to the staging area and inspected. The engine started and ran smooth, the safety windshield had popped out as designed, and Offutt amazingly only suffered a bruised elbow.

This September 1948 factory photo shows Tucker
No. 1027 after it rolled twice during endurance
testing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 

(Tucker Historical Collection)

The pop-out windshield worked!

#1027 was not scrapped, but rather returned to the Engineering Department of the factory where the engine was removed. On the March 3, 1949, factory inventory, it was listed as “no engine, wrecked.”

On Oct. 18, 1950, the car was sold at the court-ordered bankruptcy auction as a lot described as “Cars & Parts, Assorted” for $950. The buyer was an Illinois car dealer who would eventually become a source for several Tucker cars and parts. In 1951, a letter advertising the dealer’s Tucker inventory lists “Tucker No. 1027 – wrecked, $1,500” among his offerings, which also included complete, running cars for $5,000.

Parts of 1027 can be found in many other restored Tuckers.

The still-existing door from Tucker No. 1027.

(Tucker Historical Collection)

Tucker #1023

Car Number: 1023
Original Paint Code/Color: 600 Maroon
Current Paint Color: N/A
Original Interior Color: 940 Tan
Current Interior Color: N/A
Body Number: 1008
Original Engine Number: 33533
Current Engine Number: N/A
Transmission Type: Y-1

#1023, was painted maroon when it was completed at the Tucker factory in September 1948. From there, it headed to Massachusetts and New York as a company demonstrator before finding its way to Florida nearly 30 years later. 

It is also believed that Tucker 1023 was the Tucker that raced at Canfield Speedway at the 1951 Memorial Day race. The car was driven by Joe Merola and finished last with no laps completed. The reason Merola’s car didn’t finish a lap was because the car broke a right rear axle.

The car in Florida, now painted in primer and showing its age, was in storage as it awaited restoration. But in the early morning hours of Sept. 29, 1978, the unthinkable happened: fire broke out. The 20,000-square-foot Allied Van Lines warehouse in Deland, Fla., in which the car was stored became completely engulfed with fire.

The damaged Tucker sat unprotected until April 1980 when it was finally released from the site. The rusted, warped hulk revealed only a few salvageable items when noted Tucker historian Richard Jones inspected it and brought it home. What was left was taken to the scrap yard crusher.

.(Richard Jones photos)

The burned-out, rusted remnants of Tucker #1023 around 1980 just moments before it entered the scrap yard crusher and was reduced to a square
block of metal. It was later buried underneath the newly built garage of
Tucker restorer Richard Jones.

(Richard Jones photos here and below)

Into the crusher...

“Today,” explained Richard Jones, “my two-and-a-half-car garage rests on top of the remains of Tucker No. 1023.”

Road & Track: 

The Sad Story of the Tucker 48 Killed in a Fire

Tucker 1023 was burned beyond recognition.

BY STEVE LEHTO PUBLISHED: FEB 21, 2018

Tucker #1018

Car Number: 1018
Original Paint Code/Color: 400 Beige
Current Paint Color: N/A
Original Interior Color: 940 Tan
Current Interior Color: N/A
Body Number: 1009
Original Engine Number: 33517
Current Engine Number: 18
Transmission Type: Y-1

#1018 was sold by Tucker Corp. on July 30, 1948, to its New York-area distributor, Buffalo Tucker Sales. George McKinney of Bradford, Pa., who owned both the Buffalo distributorship and a dealership in Titusville, Pa., and would later become chairman of the Tucker Distributors and Dealers Committee.

Tucker No. 1018 seen here in late summer of 1948.

In mid-1948, local newspapers reported McKinney driving the Tucker to “various towns, giving demo rides and showing the car to friends.”

News reports were then later published that Tucker #1018 was involved in a crash, apparently hitting a tree broadside at high speed near the intersection of Olean Road and Blakely in East Aurora, New York in August 1948. A wrecker tore the car in half removing it from the tree.

No injuries were reported, and the salvaged remains, which included the entire front clip of the car, were returned to Bradford, Pa.

In 1992, the engine, radiator, fender vents, and under-seat heater from Tucker # 1018 were purchased by a collector, while the front clip was located by another and later sold at RM Auctions’ 2002 Michigan event.

Tucker #1018 in late summer of 1948.

Tucker 1018 after striking the tree in
New York.

(Cammack Collection photo)

A 2002 auction included a Tucker parts assortment that included the
unrestored front end from Tucker #1018.

(Tucker Historical Collection)

Tucker #1042

Car Number: 1042
Original Paint Code/Color: 600 Maroon
Current Paint Color: Unknown
Original Interior Color: 940 Tan
Current Interior Color: Unknown

No known photos of  Tucker 1042 in any state exist, but its bizarre story has become legend within Tucker circles.

Rumors and anecdotal stories abound, but the documented truth has eluded researchers for years.

What is known is that at the October 1950 Tucker Corp. bankruptcy auction, this was one Tucker sold without an engine installed. The current belief by many is that this car was vandalized in the early 1960s and no longer remains. One story maintains that a veteran’s organization sold raffle tickets to “Bash a Tucker,” while another says a disgruntled renter had the car hauled off for scrap. In 1973, automotive writer Memmo Duerksen began following up on a story of a Tucker car that had been discovered near Memphis, Tenn. The story, as related to him, was that around 1960, a motorcycle police officer found a Tucker abandoned and nearly covered in weeds along the banks of the Mississippi River. The Tucker remnants were hauled to his home and parked behind a rental property.

After a motorcycle accident found the officer hospitalized for an extended period of time, he returned home to find the remnants gone. It is unclear if the remains were stolen or carted off to the scrap yard by the landlord.