At age 16, Preston Tucker began purchasing late model automobiles, repairing and refurbishing them to sell for a profit.

Vera would run the station during the day while Preston worked on the Ford Motor Company assembly line.

After the lease ran out, Tucker quit Ford and returned to the LPPD, but in his first winter back he was banned from driving police vehicles after using a blowtorch to cut a hole in the dashboard of a cruiser to allow engine heat to warm the cabin.

Dulian was transferred a couple of years later, but Tucker stayed in Memphis and was a salesman for Ivor Schmidt (Stutz) and John T. Fisher Motor Company (Chrysler), where he became general sales manager.

Having a heavy interest in the race cars and their designers, Tucker met Harry Miller, maker of more Indianapolis 500-winning engines than any other during this period.

Tucker moved to Indianapolis to be closer to the racing car development scene and worked as the transportation manager for a beer distributor, overseeing the fleet of delivery trucks for the company.

However, the time to develop and test the cars was insufficient, and the steering boxes on all entrants overheated and locked up, causing them to drop out of the race.

In late 1937, while recovering in an Indianapolis hospital from an appendectomy, Tucker was reading the news and, learning of looming war in Europe, he got the idea of developing a high-speed armored combat vehicle.

Opportunity arose for Tucker from the Netherlands, whose government wanted a combat vehicle suited to the muddy Dutch terrain.

Harry Miller would later take some of the designs from the Tucker Combat Car to American Bantam, where he was involved in the development of the first Jeep.

Studebaker was first with an all-new postwar model, but Tucker took a different tack, designing a safety-oriented car with innovative features and modern styling.

Tucker's first design appeared in Science Illustrated magazine in December 1946, showing a futuristic version of the car with a hydraulic drive system designed by George Lawson, along with a photo of a 1/8 scale model blown up to appear full sized, titled the "Torpedo on Wheels".

He was put in charge of pursuing a United States Air Force development contract, hoping to use Tucker's huge Chicago factory to someday build more than just cars.

[7] Tucker suffered another setback when his bids to obtain two steel mills to provide raw materials for his cars were rejected by the WAA under a shroud of questionable politics.

[4] Tucker's specifications for his revolutionary car called for a rear engine, a low-RPM 589 cu in (9.7 L) engine with hydraulic valves instead[clarification needed] of a camshaft, fuel injection, direct-drive torque converters on each rear wheel (instead of a transmission), disc brakes, the location of all instruments within the diameter and reach of the steering wheel, a padded dashboard, self-sealing tubeless tires, independent springless suspension, a chassis that protected occupants in a side impact, a roll bar within the roof, a laminated windshield designed to pop out during an accident, and a center "cyclops" headlight which would turn when steering at angles greater than 10 degrees in order to improve visibility around corners during night driving.

While most of those innovations made it to the final 51 prototypes, several were dropped for their cost and the lack of time to develop such mechanically-complicated designs.

The low-RPM 589-cubic-inch engine, individual torque converters, mechanical fuel injection, and the disc brakes were all dropped during the design and testing phase.

The SEC was embittered after small automaker Kaiser-Frazer was given millions of dollars in grants towards development of a new car, and subsequently squandered the money.

"[9] In reply, Tucker claimed that he had asked Toulmin to resign "to make way for a prominent man now active in the automobile industry"—himself.

Tucker responded by publishing a full-page advertisement in many national newspapers with "an open letter to the automobile industry" wherein he subtly hinted that his efforts to build the cars were being stymied by politics and an SEC conspiracy.

[10] Nonetheless, dealership owners began filing lawsuits to recover their money, and Tucker's stock value plummeted.

On March 3, a federal judge handed control of the Tucker Corporation over to Aaron J. Colnon and John H. Schatz.

Tucker publicly called the charges "silly and ridiculous" and hailed the indictment as "an opportunity to explain our side of the story".

Answering back in Tucker's defense, designer Alex Tremulis testified that it was common industry practice to use old car parts for prototype builds, and pointed out this had been done when he was involved with developing the 1942 Oldsmobile under General Motors.

This back and forth between the prosecution and the defense continued until November 8, 1949, when the judge demanded the SEC prosecutors "get down to the meat of the case and start proving the conspiracy charge."

Defense attorney Kirby directed attention to automaker Kaiser-Frazer, pointing out that early models of their government-funded new car model had been made of wood and that when this project failed, Kirby stated in court documents that "Kaiser-Frazer didn't get indicted, and they got 44 million dollars in loans from the government, didn't they?"

Despite the outcome of the trial, speculation has continued with regard to the question of whether Tucker genuinely intended to produce a new car and bring it to market, or whether the entire enterprise was a sham, designed for the sole purpose of collecting funds from gullible investors.

At the trial, the Tucker VP Lee Treese testified that they were 90% ready with industrial machinery at the Chicago plant to mass-produce the vehicle.

In the early 1950s, Tucker teamed up with investors from Brazil and auto designer Alexis de Sakhnoffsky to build a sports car called the Carioca.

Otto Kerner Jr., the U.S. Attorney who had aggressively pursued the Tucker Corporation, was later convicted on 17 counts of bribery, conspiracy, perjury, and related charges for stock fraud in 1974.