Among the initiatives of American industrialist

Preston Tucker Preston Thomas Tucker (21 September 1903 – 26 December 1956) was an American automobile entrepreneur. He is most remembered for his Tucker 48 sedan, initially nicknamed the "Tucker Torpedo", an automobile which introduced many features t ...

during World War II was the Tucker armored car (also known as the Tucker Tiger Tank even though it was not a tank). Some prototypes of the high-speed armored car were tested, but no operational models were ordered. The vehicle was designed with a very powerful

V12 engine A V12 engine is a twelve-cylinder piston engine where two banks of six cylinders are arranged in a V configuration around a common crankshaft. V12 engines are more common than V10 engines. However, they are less common than V8 engines. The fi ...

, so it could travel at on road and off road. The vehicle was conceived as being armed with a primary armament of a

anti-aircraft gun Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...

capable of firing 120 rounds per minute, mounted in an aircraft-style spherical

gun turret A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechani ...

. The turret would have been supplemented by machine guns on production vehicles. The vehicle was promoted as being so fast it would chase aircraft, allowing it to hit them with more rounds than fixed gun batteries or slower vehicles. Long after the war, when Tucker faced the

Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...

, Tucker's press agents produced a highly-colored half-hour film entitled '' Tucker: The Man and his Car'' for the Commission members. This film implied that the Tucker armored car and the

Tucker gun turret The Tucker gun turret was a fast-traversing electrically powered gun turret widely described as having been mounted on World War II bombers and on some ground vehicles and small naval vessels like US Navy PT boats. American industrialist Preston T ...

, which were never operational weapons, had been important weapons in World War II. Steve Lehto and

Jay Leno James Douglas Muir Leno (; born April 28, 1950) is an American television host, comedian, writer, and actor. After doing stand-up comedy for years, he became the host of NBC's ''The Tonight Show'' from 1992 to 2009. Beginning in September 2009 ...

, who worked to debunk misconceptions about Tucker's career and importance during World War II, attribute the misconceptions to Tucker's promotional movie.

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite news , url = https://pdhonline.com/courses/m572/m572handout.pdf , title = Tucker 48: The Car of Tomorrow , archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20190714162104/https://pdhonline.com/courses/m572/m572handout.pdf , archivedate = 2019-07-14 , accessdate = 2019-07-14 , url-status = live {{cite news , url = https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a32912/the-secret-missing-tank/ , title = The Missing V12-Powered Tank Tucker Built to Dominate World War II , work = Road & Track magazine , author = Steve Lehto , date = 2017-03-13 , archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20190714162850/https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a32912/the-secret-missing-tank/ , archivedate = 2019-07-14 , accessdate = 2019-07-14 , url-status = live , quote = Tucker explored the possibility of furnishing goods to the military as the war approached, and he imagined an armored vehicle driven by a powerful engine, racing around a battlefield faster than the lumbering army tanks of the day. He developed a prototype which he called the Tucker Tiger Tank. The vehicle was wheeled, not tracked, so it would more properly be considered not a tank but an armored car. It was also fast, powered by a Packard V12 engine famed engine builder Harry Miller had modified for the application. {{cite book , url = https://books.google.com/books?id=f1A9DAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Tucker+Turret%22&pg=PT28 , title = Preston Tucker and His Battle to Build the Car of Tomorrow , publisher =

Chicago Review Press Chicago Review Press, or CRP, is a U.S. book publisher and an independent company founded in 1973. Chicago Review Press publishes approximately 60 new titles yearly under eight imprints: Chicago Review Press, Lawrence Hill Books, Academy Chicago, ...

, isbn = 9781613749562 , author1 = Steve Lehto , author2 =

, date = 2016 , archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20171107030047/https://books.google.ca/books?id=f1A9DAAAQBAJ&pg=PT28&dq=%22Tucker+Turret%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwil4NSAn-_RAhWhx4MKHT5tADYQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22Tucker%20Turret%22&f=false , archivedate = 2017-11-07 , accessdate = 2017-02-01 , url-status = live , quote = The chief of the air corps called the turret “ingenious” and invited Tucker to a conference at Wright Field to discuss the needs of gun turrets with the military. Armoured cars of the United States World War II armoured cars