Plot

The film is initially presented as a kitschy promotional movie/documentary made in the 1940s, complete with a eccentric narrator and flashy titles that decorate the screen. The story concerns Preston Tucker’s (Jeff Bridges) dream of making a safe and reliable family automobile – with technological innovations that were rather radical at the time. As a result, the established car manufacturers considered his car a threat to their products. Tucker’s car could be built for a fraction of the money it took the mainstream carmakers to construct one. His car also featured a wide array of extras like disc brakes, seat belts, a fuel-injected engine in the rear, a padded dashboard, and a front windshield that popped out in a severe collision. These ideas were considered revolutionary at the time, and as Tucker began to make his car a reality, the Big Three and the authorities in Washington, D.C. worked together to ruin him.

Production

The film’s inception can be traced as far back as 1976 when Coppola considered it as a potential project with Marlon Brando playing Tucker. Nothing ever materialized and so Coppola ended up meeting with composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein with the idea of transforming the film into a musical comedy. This approach was deemed “impractical” and the film was shelved again. Studios at the time were not interested in doing a film on a rather obscure historical figure like Preston Tucker.

It wasn’t until 1986 that Tucker became a viable commodity in the eyes of a studio. This was due in large part to the involvement of Coppola’s close friend and cinematic contemporary, George Lucas who guaranteed a $25 million budget for the film.

Coppola had a certain amount of personal affiliation with the material. His father had been one of the original investors in Tucker stock and since Coppola was a young boy he had always admired the inventor’s short-lived legacy. Coppola stated in an interview that, “It was that beautiful, gleaming car that caught my imagination, but it was also something else: the whole notion of what our country was going to be like in twenty or thirty years, based on our new position in the world…our technological inventiveness.”

Principal photography for Tucker began on April 13, 1987 shot on location in and around the Bay Area. George Lucas’ input on the production side of things helped Coppola immensely as his wife, Eleanor remembers, “Usually he’s at odds with the production side of things; they haven’t understood him, and haven’t given him money in the areas where he needed it. On Tucker, he felt relieved to turn over some of the responsibility to George, who’s a fellow filmmaker.” Lucas not only loaned his state-of-the-art sound facilities to Coppola, but his own expertise in filmmaking as well.

The famed stylist, Alex Tremulis, who was hired by Tucker and given just six days to finalize the design, served as a consultant for the movie.

[edit] The cars

Fortunately for producers of this movie, 48 of the original 51 Tucker cars still exist, and many are in excellent condition. These cars were borrowed from members of the Tucker Automobile Club (some of whom were allowed to be extras in the film), and a number of Tucker replicas were also built specifically for the movie. These replicas were used to supplement to original Tuckers used in the film.

A green Tucker shown in the track scene where the car is being driven for 24 hours straight to test its endurance, rolls over, becoming a dented wreck. However, this car wasn’t a Tucker. It was an old Studebaker sedan that used replica Tucker body panels, Tuckers being too valuable. This car, still in its wrecked state, is presently on display at a car museum in Tallahassee, Florida.