Few cars carry as much mythology per surviving example as the Tucker 48, and RM Sotheby's has one of the rarer specimens heading to its Monterey sale this August. Chassis number 1019, the 19th production car built, comes with an estimate of $1,000,000 to $1,300,000 and a paper trail that reads like a family scrapbook spanning more than seven decades.
Only 51 Tucker automobiles were ever built, and 47 are known to survive today, mostly locked away in museums and long-term collections. This example was originally delivered in Viola Grey to a Seattle dealership in 1947, then sold in 1952 to William Bryan, who used it as a rolling billboard during an unsuccessful run for Congress before repainting it a darker blue with campaign graphics. In 1959, Pasadena contractor Melvin Hull spotted the car sitting in a repair shop, waited eight hours for the owner to return, and bought it on the spot for $1,250 plus a plane ticket home for the seller.
Hull kept the Tucker running and driving for decades, using it for family outings and local parades, and in 1987 the car joined 20 other surviving Tuckers in Francis Ford Coppola's film Tucker: The Man and His Dream, appearing in the climactic parade scene shot in downtown San Francisco. Hull eventually gifted the car to his daughter Debbie, who loaned it to a Southern California museum for over a decade before the current consignor acquired it in 2012, after 53 years with the Hull family.
Remarkably, chassis 1019 has never undergone a full nut-and-bolt restoration, wearing only the cosmetic refinishes applied by the Hulls decades ago along with its original engine and firewall body tag. That question of preserving original patina versus restoring to concours condition is one our Restomod vs. Original: Which Is Right for You? explores in more depth. With surviving Tuckers becoming scarcer every year as more disappear into permanent museum collections, this is a rare chance to buy into automotive history at auction. You can view the full catalog description and register to bid over at RM Sotheby's.
