Three donated Tucker automobiles headed to AACA Museum

Hershey, PA. — The world's largest Tucker collection is headed to its new permanent home at the AACA Museum in Hershey, Pa., from the David Cammack Collection in Virginia.

Earlier this year,Old Cars Weekly reader David Cammack, a supporter of the AACA Museum, passed on. This week begins the process of moving his collection, which includes three Tuckers, from a storage facility in Virginia and re-locating them to secure, locked storage at the AACA Museum. Cars were removed on open trailers from tight quarters at the storage facility, then placed in enclosed carriers headed for Hershey.

"This is a very exciting time and we were anxious to be able to share this news!," said the museum. "Photographs and video will be taken to document this progression."

Cammack was an avid Tucker collector and donated his extensive Tucker Collection to the AACA Museum. His desire was to have this collection shared with the public, and the AACA Museum is honored to be chosen as the caretakers of this extensive collection and able to share this collection with the public. The Cammack collection includes three 1948 Tucker 48 vehicles, the factory Tucker test chassis, hundreds of engineering drawings, original Tucker parts, several engines as well as many other artifacts and displays. The vehicles include Tucker #1001 - the first "production" prototype, Tucker #1022, and Tucker #1026 - the only Tucker built with an automatic transmission. A total of 51 Tuckers were built by hand in Chicago, of which 47 are known to still exist. The three Tuckers which will reside at the AACA Museum will be the largest collection of these vehicles on permanent display anywhere. Smithsonian Magazine published a video of Mr. Cammack on YouTube in the fall of 2009 that allows you to hear about this collection directly from Mr. Cammack (click here for the video of Cammack) .

Preston Tucker and his story was detailed in Francis Ford Coppola's 1988 film, "Tucker: The Man and His Dream" and certainly helped bolster the public's intense fascination with the "Car of Tomorrow."

The AACA Museum is in the process of designing a dedicated gallery space that will house this collection on a permanent basis and will allow tens of thousands of visitors each year to enjoy these vehicles and other collection pieces.

"We are working diligently to make this display come to life in the last half of 2014," said the museum. "Taking a lead from Preston Tucker's philosophy, the Tucker vehicles and other collection pieces will NOT be on display until the time of the Grand Opening. Updates on progress will be ongoing through the Museum's website, e-newsletter, Facebook and Twitter communications and we hope that you will follow the progress and join us for a spectacular exhibit opening in 2014."

To learn more facts on Tucker vehicles and history you can visit the Tucker club website .

MOVING DAY

Photos of "moving day" are below. You will see that these vehicles were loaded into a rollback. There was not sufficient space for an enclosed transport vehicle to park at the warehouse facility. Each vehicle was loaded onto the rollback then transported to a staging area where they were put into the enclosed transport vehicle from their trip from Virginia to Pennsylvania.