Unbelievable: a Tucker on eBay

By Jen

Editor

Seeing one of these cars is kind of like seeing a unicorn: it just doesn’t happen. But Autoblog tells us that one of the original 51 Tuckers, built in 1948 by doomed visionary Preston Tucker, sold on eBay yesterday for a couple of hundred grand. This one was converted in 1964 to run a Mercury Monterey driveline, including a 390 V8 in place of the original Tucker’s rear-mounted Franklin aircraft engine. This is the kind of radical engine swap you could never get away with today on an original Tucker, which is valued in the hundreds of thousands. But it’s clear that the conversion actually makes this ultra-rare classic a lot more feasible as a driver: with the 390, it’s something you could actually work on and enjoy, rather than just a giant paperweight.

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Posted at 5:28 pm in 1948, Autoblog, eBay, Jen Dunnaway, Random Stuff, Tucker

Comments

Highspeedhijinks
Aug 21, 2007 at 5:56 pm

Im sorry, I really should double check myself before I post. It wasnt an 8 cylinder, it was a 6. But everything else was right haha.

Evan Norris
Aug 21, 2007 at 5:53 pm

What a dream! I would love to own one of these classic cars.

I guess the only other alternative is to have one of these.
http://www.robidaconcepts.com/page/page/2766139.htm

First of all I’d love to have some money first…. hmmm maybe I could sell our house and the Wife, Kid, 2 cats, and I could live in it….
ha ha ha

Highspeedhijinks
Aug 21, 2007 at 5:52 pm

I’ve had the privilage of seeing a “real” Tucker with the crazy flat 8 helicopter engine in it. That to me is a real tucker. This looks like a good all around driver though.