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In the wake of World War II, the US automobile industry was fully unprepared to meet the public’s growing demands. Preston Tucker—a salesman with a magnetic personality and a true love of automobiles—announced a revolutionary new car incorporating features he was convinced would become commonplace: aerodynamic styling, disc brakes, fuel injection, a safer passenger compartment, and of course the cyclops headlight. Not all these features made it into the Chicago-built Tucker ’48, but it was the first car in nearly a decade to be built fresh from the ground up and included advances other car companies couldn’t match. The Tucker ’48 captured the imagination of the masses and Detroit automakers took notice.

Today, we remember Preston Tucker as a visionary—and a man who fought a valiant battle against the Securities and Exchange Commission and lost. In his new book, Preston Tucker and His Battle to Build the Car of Tomorrow, Steve Lehto presents a nuanced look at Tucker’s amazing rise and fall. Here Steve discusses his personal interest in cars and how he researched Tucker’s life.

Your previous books include Chrysler’s Turbine Car. How did you get interested in cars, and specifically Preston Tucker’s story?

I’ve loved cars all my life. I worked in a gas station in high school and worked on my own car in my spare time. I have five brothers who were all into cars as well and my dad collected car books. It seems that cars have always been part of the fabric of my life. Tucker’s story interested me because no one had written an unbiased book about him. There were books on him but they were written by people who knew him and had a stake in the story. I wondered what the story would look like to an unbiased researcher. I am also an attorney and found the legal aspects of his story interesting.

In the factory. Courtesy of TACA.

How did people respond when you told them you were writing a book about Tucker? Did they bring up the movie Tucker: The Man and His Dream?

Almost everyone has seen that movie and everyone wonders how accurate it is. Interestingly, I have spoken with many of the Tucker family members and they like the movie. They helped the producers during the production and thought Jeff Bridges captured the personality of Tucker quite well. The movie had to—out of necessity—condense some parts of the story. And, for drama, they added a few elements. For example, Tucker gave his own closing argument in the movie. That never happened, but the true story of the trial was quite dramatic. It’s just that Hollywood knows it is difficult to bring some of these events to life on the big screen and still keep them accurate.

How did you begin your research? Tell us about the trove of documents you found that haven’t been used by anyone else.

I dug through a lot of archives. The Tucker Automobile Club of America has a huge collection of material on Tucker and so does the National Archive. They have the legal documents regarding many of the trials of Tucker. Besides his criminal trial, there was a bankruptcy action and a number of lawsuits. Buried among those I found a sealed transcript which had not been opened in over 60 years. To get it open, I retained an attorney and filed an action in Federal Court in Detroit. The court finally entered an order allowing us to open and use the transcript. The transcript was of a deposition—testimony given by one of the key witnesses in the main Tucker trial. A few years later he backpedaled and admitted he knew almost nothing about what the prosecution had claimed he was an expert on and pretty much disavowed much of his testimony from the trial. After he testified, his attorneys ran to court and got the order to seal it.

Of the 51 Tuckers built, there are 47 Tuckers still in existence. Is there a tight-knit community of Tucker owners?

Yes, and they have an organization: The Tucker Automobile Club of America (TACA). They have annual meetings—this year’s is in Ypsilanti, the town where Tucker lived much of his life. They hope to have five Tucker automobiles in attendance.

What do you hope people’s impression of Tucker is after they read your book? What do you think the big takeaway is?

Tucker was trying to start a car company—just an entrepreneur. Many people today assume he must have been guilty of something since he was so publicly taken down by the government— the SEC, Federal prosecutors, and so on. But in the end, he was found not guilty—in a spectacular fashion—and we know now that many of the charges against him were trumped up. He had enemies in high places. We just can’t prove precisely who it was that pulled the strings to take him down.

Preston Tucker and His Battle to Build the Car of Tomorrow officially publishes on July 1. It is available where books and e-books are sold. Read an excerpt on The Drive.

“Car enthusiasts of every stripe—including Jay Leno, who was inspired to provide a thoughtful introduction—will appreciate Lehto’s meticulous research, which re-creates a lost era and cogently and accurately presents the full dramatic story of one of the auto industry’s seminal innovators.”—Booklist

[Get it now: $28]  [Request a review copy]