Controversial 1948 Tucker Convertible
Submitted by Auto Restoration 101 Blog
I remember reading somewhere before that someone had found a Tucker convertible
and I had forgotten all about it until today. I just came across this article. It’s debated whether or not the car was assembled at the factory which would make it a genuine Tucker convertible or assembled after the plant had closed because there is no mention of it in any paper work. The car is currently undergoing a restoration and should be completed this year. Genuine or not it’s still going to be great to see the only Tucker convertible in existence.
Image source www.madison.com
This story is from the Wisconsin State Journal
WED., FEB 18, 2009 - 1:59 PM
Moe: Unique local car is a historical legend
By Doug Moe
It is the object of envy, wonder, curiosity and derision in the passionate and somewhat insulated world of classic cars.
Believers have trouble even estimating its true worth.
“We’ve had people,” said Justin Cole, “who think $5 million is low.”
For all that, today it sits unobtrusively, only partially assembled, toward the rear of the back shop in a building in Fitchburg.
On a morning last week, the mysterious Tucker convertible did not look like a legend.
The only tip-off was the grin on the face of one of the men working on assembling it.
“It’s like working on history,” Rich Schulenberg said. “A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Schulenberg works for Benchmark Classics, at the corner of Verona Road and Highway PD. It’s a classic car retailer and restorer. Justin Cole, 27, who moved to Madison five years ago from Dallas, is the company president.
Cole is the one who brought the Tucker to Madison, and he is the one at the center of the controversy — cheerfully, it seems — over whether what he has is a million-dollar baby of great historical significance or something less.
The crux of the controversy is this: Did Preston Tucker, the flamboyant, visionary auto maker from the 1940s, ever start construction at his factory of a one-of-a-kind convertible, and is that convertible now residing with Cole in Fitchburg?
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