A $3 Million Dollar Barn Find.... [PIC]

This one of a kind 1947 Tucker 48 prototype was found in the early 1970s stuck in mud behind a barn along with the front clip of the #1018 of 50 production Tucker. It had been there so long, no one seems to know how it got there. Here's 2 pics of it after it was pulled out and sitting on planks.

Known as the "Tin Goose" for all the solder needed to blend all the hand formed body panels, it was only missing its bumpers and rear fascia. Undergoing a complete restoration, it debuted at auction in 1995 and was snapped up by the William E Swigart, Jr Automobile Museum which for comparison also bought 2 production Tucker 48s. When it first debuted in 1947 it first had a 559 cid flat 6 and because of reliability problems (it didn't run for the debut) it was later replaced by an Air-Cooled Motors 335 cid flat 6. It was very similar to the production Tucker Torpedo with its cyclopean middle headlamp, pop-out windscreen, padded dash and a huge hole where the passenger dash would have been to supposedly save the passenger in a head-on collision. The standard hinged rear doors were changed to suicide hinged in production. It's finished in dark maroon although it was red in its 1947 debut. There's a projected $3 million price tag should it ever be sold, but in an auction, who knows.

Danbury Mint, to its credit, did not try to one-up Franklin Mint's old tech production Tucker, but rather offered this unique prototype to stand in comparison.