SCOTTSDALE, Arizona — Russo and Steele’s 10th annual auction in January will have a true novelty on the block: The only Tucker convertible, known as the experimental Tucker and never owned or driven, will be up for sale.
Preston Tucker’s star-crossed enterprise is generally agreed to have resulted in 51 completed sedans, which generally sell for high prices to collectors. RM Auctions sold one for $1,017,500 in 2008 in Monterey. The convertible to be sold by Russo and Steele was an uncompleted prototype that is numbered as experimental car number 57. The restorer, Benchmark Classics of Wisconsin, has responded to questions about its authenticity with a Web site that details the history of the car and its restoration and proffers a video showing the convertible top in operation.
Benchmark Classics says the convertible “started life as a Tucker 48 sedan in the Tucker factory and is stamped 57 in multiple places.” Referring to it as the “top-secret two-door convertible project,” the firm says Tucker’s engineering team took off the sedan’s top, decided the body needed strengthening, then “disassembled the car and devised a plan to strengthen the convertible’s chassis.” They re-engineered the frame and next lengthened the doors and installed a shortened windshield frame. Then they modified a late-’40s GM convertible top frame by adding a Tucker Corporation header. At that point, the company went out of business, and the car remained uncompleted, Benchmark said.
Russo and Steele say the convertible has “less than two original test miles, zero owners, never titled” and that it has the authentic rear-mounted Franklin-Tucker flat-6 engine and Cord “Invisible Hand” semi-automatic transmission. The car has been authenticated by a classic-car expert, Al Prueitt of Prueitt and Sons Restorations.
The auction takes place January 20-24.
source / insideline.com
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