Dunning1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Tucker was a fascinating car. I believe only
> 51 were built. Once upon a time, many years ago,
> I was walking home from St. Priscilla Grade
> School, and on the northwest corner of Cornelia
> and Oak Park, I saw a really unusual car parked.
> I stopped, and was looking all over it, and a
> gentleman came up, chuckling, and explained it was
> a "Tucker-Olds." I don't know what the Olds
> connection was, maybe the transmission was a
> Hydramatic, but later research indicated that the
> Tucker had a modified helicopter engine. I went
> home that night and mentioned it to my father, and
> he told me that I was crazy. When I described the
> car to him, however, he was shocked that such a
> car would be parked on the street in the
> neighborhood like that. I never did see that car
> again.
>
> Also, the big Navistar/International Harvester
> plant at Mannheim Road and North Avenue actually
> was actually built as a Buick engine plant during
> the war. An acquaintance who worked there told me
> there were all kinds of underground tunnels
> connecting various parts of the building for
> security reasons.

Supposedly they started with a 1941 Oldsmobile, and then swapped out parts as they designed and hand-made new body parts. Came across this via Google:

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2014/06/19/tucker-tin-goose-prototype-to-be-added-to-national-register-of-historic-vehicles/