FILM · 1988
Tucker: The Man and His Dream
34 archived facts 3 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (34)
- #001
Of the 51 Tuckers built to date, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola each own two.
- #002
Jeff Bridges wears cufflinks that once belonged to the real Preston Tucker.
- #003
In real life, at the end of Preston Tucker's criminal trial, eight cars were taken to the courthouse rather than the 50 cars shown in the film.
- #004
Most of the information about Preston Tucker was gathered by Francis Ford Coppola and came from the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It took Coppola several years to finally gain access to the SEC's detailed files on Tucker using the Freedom of Information Act.
- #005
The Tucker that crashes in the film was a Studebaker whose front end was a replica of a Tucker. That car is now at the Tallahassee Antique Car Museum in Tallahassee, Florida.
- #006
Four Tucker replicas were built for the film on 1974 Ford chassis. One of them, in Tucker's trademark Waltz Blue, was donated by Preston Tucker's relatives to the Ypsilanti (MI) Automotive Heritage Collection.
- #007
The former Dodge factory in Chicago was as large as depicted (now the Ford City Mall).
- #008
Francis Ford Coppola offered Jack Nicholson the role of Preston Tucker.
- #009
The "junk" car used as the starting point for the Tucker automobile prototype began life as a 1942 Oldsmobile.
- #010
The Tucker never had fuel injection as originally advertised.
- #011
There is a bottle of Rubicon wine on the dinner table. This wine is produced at a vineyard owned by Francis Ford Coppola.
- #012
As depicted in the film, the Tucker automobile had rear-hinged passenger doors; these doors were known as "suicide doors" because of the risk to rear passengers if they opened accidentally while the car was moving. Ironically, the Tucker automobile had pioneering safety features.
- #013
The license plate of the prototype shown in Chicago begins with the letters GIO. Francis Ford Coppola's son Gian-Carlo Coppola was nicknamed Gio. The film is dedicated to his memory.
- #014
During post-production on Apocalypse Now (1979), Francis Ford Coppola met with Burt Reynolds about playing Preston Tucker and noted how much he resembled the young Preston Tucker in real life. Delays in story development and logistics and commitments to other projects meant the film was not made until 1988. By then Reynolds was too old for the role.
- #015
In his closing argument to the jury, Tucker says: "One day, without knowing how we got there, we'll find ourselves at the bottom of the heap instead of king of the hill, buying radios and cars from our old enemies." By 1988 this had visibly come to pass. The US auto industry had declined. Rear-engined Volkswagens were popular. Most radios and other consumer electronics were made in Japan.
- #016
Francis Ford Coppola initially planned to make a biography of Preston Tucker after completing The Godfather Part II (1974) and wanted to give the role of Tucker to Marlon Brando. The film Coppola made after the sequel was Apocalypse Now (1979), in which Brando appeared as Colonel Kurtz.
- #017
The director's daughter appears as one of the girls with Tucker at a party during the advertising campaign.
- #018
A painting of Nikola Tesla is shown at least twice during the Tucker trial.
- #019
The silver-grey Tucker sedan that Preston Tucker shows around the factory, that his team rides in and in which he decides to assemble the last three cars has the number "22" on its windshield. The real Tucker #22, a silver-grey sedan, is displayed at the AACA Museum in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The car belonged to David Cammack, a local historian and Tucker automobile collector, and on his death in 2013 his entire collection was donated to the museum. The collection also includes Tucker #1 (the first production model, not the "Tin Goose" prototype) and #26 (the only remaining complete Tucker with the "Tucker-Matic" continuously variable transmission).
- #020
Francis Ford Coppola originally conceived this film as a musical based on Preston Tucker's life. At a point when that was still the plan, Leonard Bernstein was also intended to be on board.
- #021
Lloyd Bridges played Senator Homer Ferguson, but he is not credited in any of the film's credits.
- #022
The character Jimmy Sakayama, played by Mako, was based on a real person, James Sasakura, an engineer at the Ford Motor Company who followed Tucker all the way to Chicago. After Tucker Motor collapsed, Sasakura went to work for Ex-Cell-O Corp, where he designed the machines that produced wax-coated paper milk cartons.
- #023
The factory Preston Tucker used to build his 50 Tucker automobiles now belongs to Tootsie Roll Inc. and produces 24 million Dots candies a day; Dots are, of course, one of the most popular candies sold in US movie theaters.
- #024
This was the first film since The Godfather Part II (1974) in which Francis Ford Coppola was billed under his full name. From Apocalypse Now (1979) up to this film, he was credited as Francis Coppola.
- #025
Christian Slater plays Jeff Bridges's son in this film. The following year, in The Wizard (1989), he would play the son of Jeff's brother, Beau Bridges.
- #026
This is one of five film collaborations between actor Frederic Forrest and director Francis Ford Coppola. The others include Hammett (1982), The Conversation (1974), Apocalypse Now (1979) and One from the Heart (1981).
- #027
The cast includes three Oscar winners (Jeff Bridges, Martin Landau and Sofia Coppola) and four Oscar nominees (Joan Allen, Mako, Frederic Forrest and Dean Stockwell).
- #028
Jeff Bridges, Christian Slater and Joan Allen reunited for The Contender (2000). Bridges and Slater also appeared together in Masked and Anonymous (2003).
- #029
John Williams's music went unused.
- #030
Peter Donat plays a lawyer in a powerful senator's pocket. In The Godfather Part II (1974), he plays a crooked lawyer in the mobsters' pocket.
- #031
The Chevrolet Corvair (1960-1969) used a six-cylinder, horizontally opposed "boxer style" air-cooled engine. The engine is also popular in homebuilt aircraft.
- #032
Martin Landau was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. The following year he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). At this point Allen and Francis Ford Coppola, both by then legends, worked together on New York Stories (1989).
- #033
Howard Hughes has been played by the following actors in the following productions: Leonardo DiCaprio in The Aviator (2004), Tommy Lee Jones in Hughes and Harlow: Angels in Hell (1977) and The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977), Jason Robards in Melvin and Howard (1980), Terry O'Quinn in The Rocketeer (1991), Dean Stockwell in Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), David Neff in Bettie Page: Dark Angel (2004) and Milton Buras in The Hoax (2006). DiCaprio and Robards were each nominated for an Oscar, for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor respectively, for playing Howard Hughes. Neither won, but both actors won Oscar acting awards on other occasions.
- #034
Lloyd Bridges, who plays Senator Ferguson, played a Godfather-like figure in Mafia, a parody of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972).
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