Brickadier General Posted January 24, 2010 Hi all, I am very much alive, but I have been very busy these days. Consequently, I do not get to make many MOCs as often as I used to. But I finally got around to taking pictures of my most recent model, the 1948 Tucker Torpedo. I first found out about this car when I interned at the AACA Museum in Hershey. Eventually, they will receive three of these amazing cars. I found the story of them to be quite fascinating, and only 51 were ever officially produced. I knew that I would have to make one out of Lego. This was not an easy build. If you look at the design of the actual car, you will see what I mean. The center headlight meant that I would need to make the car 7 studs wide, and then there were the curves on the sides of the vehicle. My model is hardly purist. I used chromed bricks from Chrome Bricks, and the License Plate was done by Slick Bricks. The taillights are BrickArms rockets, cut down so they can fit in the light saber hilts. And if that weren't enough, I had to cut one of the chromed grills in half, and I also had to cut down rigid tubing for the windshield (and they are held in place with rubber cement). But anyway, here she is: Flickr Gallery And as always, your thoughts are welcome. Have a nice day, and happy building. -Matt Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ImLost Posted January 24, 2010 Absolutely stunning. The chrome looks so good with the blue- in fact the colors are even better than the real-life version. My only suggestion is to shorten the wheelbase slightly (probaby by just one stud) but it is gorgeous as it is. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lightningtiger Posted January 24, 2010 One word - COOL ! What a classic ride and with three headlights no less ! Rear end looks great too ! I'm a conformist! 'Brickadier General' ! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BlueBard Posted January 24, 2010 Gorgeous! The design is pretty close to the original and those chrome parts definitely add the "cool" touch Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Legostein Posted January 24, 2010 Hello! This is very impressive. I especially like the front with the wedge-shaped deepenings in the motor bay. But how do the 3L rigid hose pieces hold on the windscreen? When driving a curve they will easily roll away. Cheers, ~ Christopher Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RoryoCox Posted January 24, 2010 Amazing, absolutely amazing. The blue along with the chrome is fabulous. I am stunned by how brilliant your design is. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wout Posted January 24, 2010 Love the chromed Frog nice moc. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rupi Posted January 24, 2010 Amazing model you made out of Lego I wouldn't dare to do shuch modifications in Lego pieces, but I'm glad you did it Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MetroiD Posted January 24, 2010 (edited) Wow, totally unbelievable! I've been playing around these last few days trying to come up with a nice 5-wide Torpedo! Seeing this one is definitely a HUGE inspiration for me to get back to that project and complete it... Needless to say, I love the original car and I think your proportions are spot on! Design-wise your ideas have worked more than well and I love how you've combined the obvious necessities (cheese graters at the front - I've used them too ;) ) with great subtle inner slopes & detailing! This is definitely one of the best models I've seen lately, keep up the good work! As to the custom parts - the Tucker is such a hard design to recreate in LEGO that I think that was more than necessary. Besides, it has worked rather well! Edited January 24, 2010 by MetroiD Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dadster Posted January 24, 2010 I vividly remember watching the movie "Tucker - A Man and his Dream" with my father. Great story of a self-made man. Nice job on the Lego representation! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wooootles Posted January 24, 2010 Normally I'd say its too big, but the proportions seem right on this one, as well as the scale is better like that, because the Tucker is one big boat. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
badboytje88 Posted January 24, 2010 Wow that's one great great car! Look at all those lovely chrome parts! The best thing is the little frog on top of the car! Lovely Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Brickadier General Posted January 25, 2010 Everyone, thank you so much for your comments. I really appreciate your thoughts. Hello!This is very impressive. I especially like the front with the wedge-shaped deepenings in the motor bay. But how do the 3L rigid hose pieces hold on the windscreen? When driving a curve they will easily roll away. Cheers, ~ Christopher The rigid hose pieces are held onto the windscreen with rubber cement. It is a weaker form of glue that is commonly used on notepads. This means that, while it holds the parts to the windscreen, they are not permanently attached so I can take them off at anytime. I did not want to use regular glue or crazy glue, because that stuff is too strong. Still, I know I cheated. hehe Amazing model you made out of Lego I wouldn't dare to do shuch modifications in Lego pieces, but I'm glad you did it Thanks, it's a tough job, but somebody has to do it. I actually would not have made those modifications, but I was at a loss to find the best solutions without making them. I figured that, because I never plan on taking this model apart, it would be alright. Wow, totally unbelievable! I've been playing around these last few days trying to come up with a nice 5-wide Torpedo! Seeing this one is definitely a HUGE inspiration for me to get back to that project and complete it...Needless to say, I love the original car and I think your proportions are spot on! Design-wise your ideas have worked more than well and I love how you've combined the obvious necessities (cheese graters at the front - I've used them too ;) ) with great subtle inner slopes & detailing! This is definitely one of the best models I've seen lately, keep up the good work! As to the custom parts - the Tucker is such a hard design to recreate in LEGO that I think that was more than necessary. Besides, it has worked rather well! Thanks so much. I hope that you will make your 5 wide Tucker and show me it when it is completed. You're right that the Tucker is a tough car to model on a small scale. I think Model Team scale would be the easiest to work with. 7 wide was hard enough, and I can only imagine how challenging a 5 wide scale Tucker would be. Still, I think it can be done, and it sounds like you are up for the challenge. I'd say go for it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
prateek Posted January 25, 2010 All I can say is, awesome! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MetroiD Posted January 25, 2010 (edited) Thanks so much. I hope that you will make your 5 wide Tucker and show me it when it is completed. You're right that the Tucker is a tough car to model on a small scale. I think Model Team scale would be the easiest to work with. 7 wide was hard enough, and I can only imagine how challenging a 5 wide scale Tucker would be. Still, I think it can be done, and it sounds like you are up for the challenge. I'd say go for it. More than up to it - and thanks for the support I might take a few pictures of the parts I'm more or less happy with so far and send you a PM later on, for your expert advice! :) By the way, I first saw the Tucker in an ad in the newspaper back when I was 8 (used to go through a lot of the American daily papers when I was a kiddo - my uncle would post the Comics sheets across the ocean in a letter every other week :) ). I loved that car straight away and I only got back to checking on its history when I thought about making a Tucker MOC. It's a crying shame it couldn't be produced for at least a decent amount of time, but what amazes me the most is that there are absolutely no Tucker replicas nowadays. On the other hand, I guess it's normal considering the state of the automobile sector in the US I do hope we'll see the Tucker reborn someday soon though! Once again - thanks for sharing this with us :) Make sure you check out Classic-Town.net later on tomorrow, your Tucked definitely deserves a blog! Edited January 25, 2010 by MetroiD Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tuckerfan Posted January 26, 2010 MetroiD, there are Tucker replicas available! Robert Ida makes one: http://www.robidaconcepts.com/lower48.html Chick DeLorenzo who owns the last Tucker ever built was selling fibreglas Tucker bodies, but I don't know if he still is or not. Brickadier General, if you wanted to put together a Tucker Lego kit to sell, you'd probably find the Tucker Club ( http://www.tuckerclub.org/ ) happy to tell its members about it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MetroiD Posted January 26, 2010 (edited) Wow, a Tucker fan has joined the forum just because of this MOC :) Absolutely great! Welcome, Tuckerfan, and thanks for the info! I honestly had no idea there were any Tucker replicas in production, that's really good to know :) P.S.: Just out of curiousity, any idea how much a replica Tucker would set you back? Edited January 26, 2010 by MetroiD Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Brickadier General Posted January 26, 2010 More than up to it - and thanks for the support I might take a few pictures of the parts I'm more or less happy with so far and send you a PM later on, for your expert advice! :)By the way, I first saw the Tucker in an ad in the newspaper back when I was 8 (used to go through a lot of the American daily papers when I was a kiddo - my uncle would post the Comics sheets across the ocean in a letter every other week :) ). I loved that car straight away and I only got back to checking on its history when I thought about making a Tucker MOC. It's a crying shame it couldn't be produced for at least a decent amount of time, but what amazes me the most is that there are absolutely no Tucker replicas nowadays. On the other hand, I guess it's normal considering the state of the automobile sector in the US I do hope we'll see the Tucker reborn someday soon though! Once again - thanks for sharing this with us :) Make sure you check out Classic-Town.net later on tomorrow, your Tucked definitely deserves a blog! That would be great, MetroiD. I would be interested in seeing how you bring this together, but I'm no expert. :-) I just play around with things over and over again until I get something the way I want it to look. I think you can do the same with great results. As Tuckerfan pointed out, there are replicas. Unfortunately, I missed the AACA Fall Meet in Hershey this year, which I believe is one of the largest, if not the largest antique car show in the U.S. As it turns out, there was a tucker convertible there. Tucker Convertible I'm not sure what the story on it is, but from what I understand it was made from some original Tucker parts that were never used in a finished vehicle. MetroiD, there are Tucker replicas available! Robert Ida makes one: http://www.robidaconcepts.com/lower48.html Chick DeLorenzo who owns the last Tucker ever built was selling fibreglas Tucker bodies, but I don't know if he still is or not. Brickadier General, if you wanted to put together a Tucker Lego kit to sell, you'd probably find the Tucker Club ( http://www.tuckerclub.org/ ) happy to tell its members about it. Wow, thanks. That's quite the honor because when I was originally making this model, I thought it would be really cool to make a kit at a run of 51 just the like the real thing. But I gave it up for the time being due to lack of funding for it to do it the way I want to. I'm a recent college graduate, so money is tight, and I have plans to get certified to teach English as a foreign language in the late spring/early summer and hopefully be contracted somewhere by Fall. So I anticipate being busy and would hate to keep people on a long waiting list waiting for too long. However, I would like to gauge the interest in such a kit, so I will definitely stop by the Tucker Club forums. Actually, the funny thing is that I did refer to your website during the construction of my model, so thank you for providing a great website with Tucker information, and thanks for letting me know about the interest in my model. :-) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sérgio Posted January 26, 2010 Excelete 7Wide car, the mix of Blue ande Silver its realy great. Love the intelegent use of SNOT very very very Beautifull Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Brickadier General Posted January 30, 2010 MetroiD, there are Tucker replicas available! Robert Ida makes one: http://www.robidaconcepts.com/lower48.html Chick DeLorenzo who owns the last Tucker ever built was selling fibreglas Tucker bodies, but I don't know if he still is or not. Brickadier General, if you wanted to put together a Tucker Lego kit to sell, you'd probably find the Tucker Club ( http://www.tuckerclub.org/ ) happy to tell its members about it. Hi again, I checked out the Tucker Club forums, but it doesn't look like I can register, so I can't post anything about the car in it. I also tried sending you a private message regarding the Tucker kit idea via Eurobricks, but I couldn't send it. So if you could tell me who to get in touch with, as well as the best way to contact them, I'd appreciate it. I had ideas for a Tucker kit in the past and would like to do a run of 51, as professional looking as possible. However, if there is not enough interest, I would likely just build the model to order. Instruction manuals take a long time to do up, and they wouldn't really be needed for a run of around 10 models or less. Boxes with artwork would also be nixed. This is how I originally envisioned it. I thought it would be great to make 51 kits to commemorate the number of Tuckers produced. I would make the kit in 5 "regular" colors; blue, red, white, black, and yellow. There would be ten of each color. For "kit #1," it would have an exclusive green color, as green is a harder to find color. Also, it would include the chromed bricks by default. For the other 50 kits, I would have to change the color of the chromed parts to dark gray for the fenders and hood ornaments, and light gray for the light saber hilts and wheels. I realize that dark gray for the fenders is not ideal, but some of the parts used don't come in light gray, which is what I would prefer to use. I would have to do this for the kits due to the prohibitively expensive chromed bricks. I was thinking that if the kits were preordered, the buyer could specify whether or not they wanted the chrome parts. If they did, I would package the chrome bricks with their order for an extra fee. I'm going to look into finding out how much it would cost for me to get bricks chromed, rather than buying them on the aftermarket. Ideally, the box would have a nice picture of the car for the artwork, possibly with an interesting backdrop. Ideally, the kits would consist of as many new parts as I can possibly get, direct from Lego. I would also like to include a CD featuring a manual, as well as some pictures of the car in its earlier design phases. Of course, I would want to figure out what this would cost to do, and the logistics of doing it are something else. This is the way I would prefer to market the kit, so I would really hope that there are 51 people out there who would be interested in purchasing it. But after those 51 kits would be sold, there would be no plans to produce anymore in the future. So, what are your thoughts on my ideas? Thanks. Matt Excelete 7Wide car, the mix of Blue ande Silver its realy great.Love the intelegent use of SNOT very very very Beautifull Thank you very much. I love your train, by the way. Orange isn't the easiest color to work with. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
