Preston Tucker from Ypsilanti, Michigan

One of the least recognized of Ypsilanti's notable citizens was Preston Tucker, an automobile innovator who many automotive historians believed was way ahead of his time.

                                                     

In 1939, Tucker moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan, and opened the Ypsilanti Machine and Tool Company. There he innovated and produced the Tucker Turret used on PT boats, landing craft, the B-17, and the B-29 during World War II. That's where he made his fortune. After the war, he turned his attention toward his life-long passion--automobiles.

The Big Three (Ford, GM, and Chrysler) Detroit automakers had not developed a new car since World War II began. This opened the door for small, independent automakers to produce post-war cars for a starving market. Studebaker--out of Indiana--was the first to produce an entirely new automobile after the war.

But Tucker's vision was to design and build a car with modern styling and safety innovations. He pioneered hydraulic drive systems, fuel injection, direct-drive torque converters, disc brakes, easily accessible instrument panel, padded dashboard, self-sealing tubeless tires, independent springless suspension, laminated windshield, an air-cooled aircraft engine, and a "cyclops" center headlight which would turn when steering around a corner for better visibility while driving at night. The "cyclops" became a fixed headlamp on the production model. There were only fifty Tuckers built.

Academy Award winner, Jeff Bridges, played Preston Tucker

masterfully in the 1988 movie--Tucker: A Man and His Dream. An interesting aside to the film is that Jeff's father, Lloyd Bridges, played the Michigan senator that kicked the legs out from under the automotive innovator. It's fun to see the real-life father and son actors battle it out in the film. Baby Boomer's will remember Lloyd Bridges from the 1950s television series--Sea Hunt. Younger viewers may remember him from the movie--Airplane.

I have been fortunate to have seen two working Tuckers, and a third fiberglass mock up used in the filming of the movie. One of the cars is in the Henry Ford Museum; another is in Auburn, Indiana, at their Auburn/Cord/Dussenberg Automobile Museum; and the fiberglass mock-up used in the movie was at the Ypsilanti Automotive Heritage Museum in Depot Town on East Cross Street in Ypsilanti, Michigan before it was sold to a private collector. The museum needed the operating funds.

More information on Preston Tucker can be found in the link below. He died of lung cancer on December 26th, 1956, at the age of fifty-three. He is buried at Michigan Memorial Park in Flatrock, Michigan.

http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/january-22-preston-tucker-acquitted-fraud-date-1950-151952951.html;_ylt=AkOM9L2H5esPYXIrOL6L.VRQ0.d_;_ylu=X3oDMTRsYm10MWx1BG1pdANCbG9nIEZlYXR1cmVkIFBvc3RzIE1vdG9yYW1pYwRwa2cDZDM5ZWY5M2QtYWEzYS0zMGQ3LWIzOTgtNjVmYjNiNWE0NzRlBHBvcwMxBHNlYwNNZWRpYUJMaXN0TWl4ZWRMUENBVGVtcAR2ZXIDMmZmMDljMzAtNjRhNy0xMWUyLWJmYmYtMGM3YzZjZGUxZDcw;_ylg=X3oDMTFpMm9iMzh1BGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANibG9nBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25z;_ylv=3

Henry Ford Museum Creates Titanic Walk Through Time

When my brother Rick and I were kids in the early Sixties, we used to sneak into the Henry Ford Museum located in Dearborn, Michigan. These stolen moments in this world-famous museum were the most formative of my childhood. The outside of the old museum entrance was a replica of Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

Inside the foyer, there was a wide staircase leading to what amounted to a shrine to Henry Ford that was free. Rick and I would lurk and wait for our chance to slip unnoticed past the often preoccupied ticket takers. Not so easy these days.

Today, the renovated museum has a new entrance with a bookstore and an incredible Imax theater added to the museum complex. Adjacent to the museum is Greenfield Village, an attraction in its own right. It replicates a nineteenth century village with many famous buildings of that era like the Wright Brothers Bicycle Shop and Thomas Edison's workshop, where the electric light bulb was invented.

The indoor museum boasts having the restored bus made famous by Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama. The Henry Ford Museum also has the chair President Lincoln was assassinated in at the Ford Theater in Washington DC. A grim irony is that the armchair is protected behind Plexiglas, and brown drops of the dying president's blood still stain the chair's red upholstered fabric.

Collectively, both museums are known as the Henry Ford.

In memory of the 100th Anniversary of the Titanic's tragic maiden cruise, the Henry Ford Museum has assembled an exhibit that does honor to the memory of those who died so many years ago. If you are in the Detroit area, don't miss this special exhibit.

http://blog.visitdetroit.com/entry/walk-through-titanic-henry-ford-museum.html