Where would we be today if?

[Twitch]

Ah now the PT Cruiser with a Hemi is what it was all about in the old days! Pintos with 427s, Vegas with 454s....the good old days.

 

[nubsnubs]

Challenger

OK. The HHR is not bad. The PT Cruiser is a neon with a different body, and holds up about as long as a neon would before wearing out. The new Mustang, especially the cobra and Roush are awsome, and the new Camaro looks to a be pretty great too... but I am ready to start seeing this new challenger.

 

[Jack Armstrong]

And further more, where would we be today if the visionary Preston Tucker continued to produce automobiles like his wonderful 1948 Torpedo?

That's a question I've pondered for a long time. What might the 1956 Tucker have been like? The 1976?

If (and it's a big "if") Preston Tucker had remained as innovative as he was in 1948 -- and if the Tucker Torpedo had proven a consistently profitable seller once the postwar car shortage passed -- I think he would have turned the company toward front-wheel-drive early on. FWD was a major problem for mass-produced cars for a long time (until the widespread adoption of the CV joint) and I think that Tucker Motors would have been at the cutting edge of engineering in this area.

During the Sixties, turbine engines were making a big stir, and it's not much of a stretch to imagine a 1966 front-drive Tucker Typhoon sporting an advanced turbine, maybe with some kind of electric drive to circumvent the throttle-lag problem.

With both turbine and electric-drive technology firmly under its belt, Tucker Motors would have been sitting pretty as the era of fuel efficiency dawned. Where they might have gone from there is a little harder to visualize. Maybe a four-wheel-drive electric-drive high-efficiency multifuel turbine. The Tucker Tornado?

William Lear made some major advances in steam-car design during the Sixties and late Seventies, so it's also possible that Tucker's engineering department might have licensed some patents and gone that route instead. Imagine a quiet, powerful, high-mileage multifuel steam car using some high-tech synthetic working fluid in a sealed system. The 2007 Tucker Tempest, perhaps?

Alas, we'll never know in this universe.

 

[Twitch]

I believe that cars like Tuckers would have later fallen in between the very limited production exotic category and that of Deloreans had they survived.

You know perhaps 5,000 cars a year for a company leaning on mainstream and probably 500 a year for a car more exotic/expensive.[huh]