Question of the Day: Is Tesla Doomed to Imitate Tucker?

The year was 1948 and well, Tucker happened. There are many sides to Preston Tucker’s story. One is essentially what Francis Ford Coppola portrayed in his biopic, Tucker: The Man and his Dream, where a man with a better idea is prevented from fairly competing by the two-headed serpent of Washington and big business. The flip side is that Mr. Tucker was a scam artist that conned would-be stock holders out of $15m by selling them accessories for a product that didn’t exist. He was indicted for fraud, you know. But what really sank Tucker? Ironically, it was the “Tuckermatic” transmission. Most likely because of his racing background, Preston Tucker stuck a helicopter engine in the back of the Tucker Torpedo. Initially air-cooled, the flat-six produced a whopping 372 lb-ft of torque. Enough torque to rip the guts out of most transmissions in 1948. Tucker decided to address the problem with his Tuckermatic, a slushbox that sported only 27 moving parts– 90 less than conventional cog swappers. Only he never bothered to put a reverse gear in the prototype tranny. The press not only had a field day writing about “the car that couldn’t backup.” The Tucker brand lost much of its luster. Sure, he eventually threw a Cord automatic into his Torpedo. But the damage was done. Despite building 51 prototypes, many alleged that P. Tucker either never intended to mass produce the cars or that he was in so deep with on the development end of things he never got around to buying the necessary machines and tools to fire-up an assembly line. Any of this sound, well, shockingly similar to what’s going on at Tesla? While the details are obviously different (Washington and Detroit getting anything accomplished? Ha ha ha ha ha) the large strokes are, well… Promise one transmission, deliver another that prevents the car from achieving its advertised performance potential. Claim that development mules are actually production cars. Collect large amounts of money from investors only to play fast and loose with the books. Tucker and his six co-defendants were eventually cleared of any and all wrong doing, but the damage (and Tucker) was done. How far behind is Tesla?