Tucker automobile #39, 1948

December 9, 2015 – August 22, 2016 - The Tucker car in this exhibition passed through numerous owners and had been repainted and reupholstered. It was seized in 1992 by the U.S. Marshals Service following a narcotics investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and transferred to NMAH the next year.  The Tucker never entered full production, but its design epitomized automotive trends that were new and significant in the immediate postwar years: avant-garde styling, innovative mechanical features, awakening interest in passenger safety, and efforts by small manufacturers to capture a larger share of the new car market. The Tucker was an exaggeration of these trends and evidence that the desire for change was strong enough to move some fairly radical ideas from the drawing board to the production stage.