Tucker was acquitted on all 31 counts — but his company had already been auctioned off

Preston Tucker had been planning his car since the war years. In July 1946 the Tucker Corporation signed the lease on the Dodge Chicago Aircraft Engine Plant — the largest factory building in the world — on one condition: raise 15 million dollars in capital by March 1947. The Lustron dispute kept him out until September 1947, but showmanship moved faster than the factory: on 19 June 1947, before more than 3,000 invited guests, Tucker unveiled the first prototype, and the full-page ads claimed fifteen years of testing had produced the car of the year — though no running prototype existed.

The car that emerged cost four times the promise: advertised at one thousand dollars, it sold for closer to four thousand. And the money came from selling the car twice — through the Accessories Program, future buyers could purchase seat covers, radios and luggage to secure their place on the waiting list, before any car was built. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the United States Attorney investigated; the company surrendered its records to the SEC in 1949. On 3 March 1949, with 51 cars built, operations ceased and a federal judge handed the company to receivers.

On 10 June 1949 Tucker and six other executives were indicted — twenty-five counts of mail fraud, five of securities violations, one of conspiracy. The trial opened on 4 October; on 22 January 1950, after twenty-eight hours of deliberation, the jury found every defendant not guilty on all counts. But the verdict saved nothing: no factory, buried in debt, sued by its own dealers, and the assets auctioned publicly in Chicago. Tucker suspected the Big Three automakers and senator Homer S. Ferguson had a hand in the demise — his suspicion, never established. He died in December 1956, aged 53.

The telling began with the cars: 47 of the 51 survive, among the most valuable American cars — one bought in 1959 for 1,250 dollars now carries a seven-figure estimate. Twenty-one starred in Francis Ford Coppola's film Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) — a project he carried since childhood, announced in 1973. George Lucas covered the 24-million-dollar budget; the film earned three Oscar nominations, including one for Martin Landau. The museums that keep the cars still ask the question the jury answered: was Tucker an automotive genius, or just another scam artist?