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Chapter 7 Two Long Shots Book: The Indomitable Tin Goose Subtitle: The True Story of Preston Tucker and His Car Author: Charles T. Pearson Publisher: Abelard-Schuman Year: 1960 |
7 TWO LONG SHOTS
TUCKER WORKED steadily through the early months of 1946, but as Memorial Day came closer he began to grow restless. The reason was simple: there was nothing important enough to keep him away from Indianapolis, where he hadn't missed a race in years. Talking about it one day, he got the idea that a win at the famous “500” would climax his buildup for the two biggest hurdles ahead—getting the Dodge plant and putting over a stock issue.
Most of his associates were against the idea on grounds that the odds were too long, but since Tucker was paying for it they didn't argue too much. George Barringer of Indianapolis, a contender in five Speedway battles, had one of the six rear-engine racing cars that Harry Miller had built for the Gulf Oil Corporation, so Tucker bought the car and hired Barringer to drive it.
Entered as the “Tucker Torpedo Special,” it had many of the features Tucker planned for his passenger car, including an aluminum head and block cast in a single unit, individual wheel suspension and hydraulic disc brakes. The engine was a straight six with a supercharger, and was the only one entered that used ordinary gasoline. It had 275 horsepower and had been clocked at 180 miles an hour in trial runs on the salt flats at Bonneville, Utah.
Many companies enter “Specials” for the publicity of just having been in the race, and none of the “Specials” ever made any pretense of being a stock car. Any stock automobile ever built would be lucky even to qualify, and nothing short of a miracle could carry one through the whole grind.
“We aren't greatly concerned whether we win or lose this race,” Tucker told reporters, which wasn't strictly the truth. “Many things can happen before and during the race, and the best car may not always win.”
Tucker was playing a long shot and counting on the car to at least make a good showing. Barringer qualified easily and drove the Special at a terrific pace for twenty-six laps, when he was forced out by gear trouble. It was too tough a job to tackle in a pit stop, so for him the race was over.
For Tucker, the failure of his Special even to finish was disappointing, but not a total loss because he had his own entry for the first time and a personal stake in the hurry and excitement around him. Many of the immortals of racing were there—Ray Harroun, Ralph De Palma, Barney Oldfield, Ab Jenkins and Louis Meyer. Ralph Hepburn set an all-time qualifying speed of 133.944 mph driving a Novi Governor Special, front-wheel drive with a 500-horsepower super-charged Winfield engine. He too was forced out of the race, with engine trouble.
Tucker was popular around the Speedway and when his entry lost, the press gave him a break, either ignoring the car's failure or mentioning that it was forced out of the race without adding any great detail. Among the reporters was John Jenkins, automotive writer for the Chicago Daily News, who later joined Tucker as public relations director for the advertising agency which handled the account.
With the race over Tucker went back to work, and before long he topped his first hurdle—getting the plant.
In setting his sights on the Dodge plant, Tucker was playing even longer odds than the race, and with considerably more at stake. Built at a cost of more than $170,000,000, it was completely modern, with offices, conference rooms, cafeteria, hospital quarters, and parking space for thousands of automobiles. Against him were other bidders with more money to invest, but in his favor were provisions of the Surplus Property Act, and the least important of its provisions was financial return to the government. The objectives in disposing of such plants were sound: to get them into operation and put people to work.
Tucker had been negotiating with War Assets since January after the plant was advertised for sale, and the prestige of his associates was an important factor in finally getting it. Most of his contact in War Assets was with Oscar H. Beasley, special assistant to the administrator.
“Tucker called me one day from Chicago,” said Beasley, “and outlined a proposal, saying he would be in Washington the next day to see me. When he came in I asked him how much actual money he had and he said $12,000. Where? In the bank at Ypsilanti. While he sat there in my office I phoned his bank and asked them a lot of questions. They told me that Tucker was the son of a family that had been in the machine tool business there and that he had an honorable reputation. As to his capacity to operate such a plant they weren't prepared to say. They told me the $12,000 was there as he said.”
When Beasley went to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to check Tucker's credit further, he received a wire from RFC Acting Assistant Manager R. H. Garfield saying:
“Pursuant to Mr. Preston Tucker's request, you are advised that RFC has made two loans to Ypsilanti Machine Tool Com-pany. Payments on the loans were always made definitely on time. In fact the loans were paid in full prior to their maturity.”
“I told Tucker I wouldn't recommend that his offer be accepted for that amount as an initial payment,” Beasley continued, “but I added several million dollars to the figure and told him if he could put things on a sound financial basis there might be some possibility we could go along with him. He raised his cash figure to $25,000 and his proposal was sent to the Board of Review. I thought the thing was dead then, and had no more to do with it for several weeks.”
Tucker submitted his proposal with a check for $25,000, and about the first of July received a “letter of intent,” accepting the bid and setting up a schedule for future payments of $150,000 a month beginning in August. Handling of that $25,000 check was later denounced by Homer Ferguson, Republican Senator from Michigan, who charged that it was never cashed. Beasley said as far as he knew, the check simply got lost.
“As far as I know it was an entirely honest deal, and if Tucker benefited by the check being lost for a while he was simply fortunate, because I don't believe there was anything deliberate on anybody's part. Something like this happening wouldn't have been at all unusual, with the amount of work they had in the financial section at that time.”
After it was apparent that months would be needed for War Assets to complete its inventory of the plant, a new lease agreement was reached canceling the monthly payments, and contingent on Tucker's having at least $15,000,000 capital by March 1 of the following year. Up to that time Tucker could use such space as was available to build pilot models and mockups.
The lease was to be for ten years beginning March 1 and called for a yearly minimum payment of $500,000 for the first two years, and $2,400,000 a year thereafter or three per cent of gross sales, whichever was the greater. The new lease included provisions for buying the plant and machinery.
While Tucker's negotiations with War Assets were largely through Beasley and the Board of Review, he worked every angle he could find to shorten the odds. No stranger to Washington, he knew the angles and enlisted representatives and senators, politicians in both parties, union leaders, financial men in New York and Chicago, influential people in government—anybody he could reach who showed any promise at all of being able to help.
Almost everybody who was working with Tucker at the time, and who got within guided missile range of Washington, claimed most of all of the credit for getting the plant. Some of them, of course, played a bigger part than others, but it it unlikely that any one person or factor was responsible. Tuckers own determination and persistence convinced War Assets that he could take over the Dodge plant and create employment.
One of the most influential men who wanted him to get the plant was Walter P. Reuther, president of the CIO United Auto Workers. Reuther wired War Assets:
“We are extremely desirous that this plant be used as a complete productive unit for the manufacture of automobiles. We believe such use will provide maximum amount of employment and provide for maximum utilization of productive capacity both for the best interest of the workers involved and the nation. Our understanding is that Preston Tucker's proposal is the only one which appears to meet these objectives.”
Copies were sent to President Truman, John R. Steelman, then head of the reconversion program, and other government officials and senators.
Whoever was responsible, Tucker had the plant. Tucker Corporation had already been formed, and he announced in the middle of July that they would set up temporary offices at the plant while WAA started inventory of $30,000,000 worth of machinery.
Offices were on the second floor of the main building, and rattling around the offices and the huge empty plant the first several weeks was like playing tag in the Rose Bowl. It would have taken a week just to look it over, riding a scooter.
Desks and chairs were pushed into position, folding tables were set up, telephones connected and people went to work. There wasn't even a receptionist yet but men and women lined up at the front entrance looking for work. Mail came by truckloads and telephone operators were swamped with calls from people who wanted jobs, some who wanted to be dealers and others who were just plain curious.
Less than seven months after Tucker announced his new automobile he was set up in the biggest manufacturing plant in the world, and all he had left to do was raise twenty or thirty million dollars and build an automobile. That did not faze Tucker in the least. He felt confident that he was on the road to big success.