Tucker: The Man and His Dream Monologues

The story of Preston Tucker, the maverick car designer and his ill-fated challenge to the auto industry with his revolutionary car concept.

... When I was a boy, I used to, uh... I used to read all about Edison, and the Wright brothers... Mr. Ford, they were, they were my heroes... 'rags to riches' that's not just the name of a book; that's, what this country was all about!... We invented the free enterprise system, where anybody, no matter who he was, where he came from, what class he belonged to... If he came up with a better idea, about ANYTHING, there's no limit to how far he could go... I grew up a generation too late I guess because now the way the system works... The loner; the dreamer; the CRACKPOT, who, comes up with some CRAZY IDEA that everybody LAUGHS at, that LATER, turns out to REVOLUTIONIZE THE WORLD... HE'S SQUASHED, FROM ABOVE, BEFORE HE EVEN GETS HIS HEAD OUT OF THE WATER, BECAUSE THE BUREAUCRATS, THEY'D RATHER KILL A NEW IDEA THAN LET IT ROCK THE BOAT!... IF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WERE ALIVE TODAY, HE'D BE THROWN IN JAIL FOR SAILING A KITE WITHOUT A LICENSE!

... It's true!... We're all puffed up with ourselves now because we invented *the bomb*... Dropped the... Beat the daylights out of the Japanese; the Nazis... But if 'big business' closes the door on THE LITTLE GUY WITH A NEW IDEA, WE'RE NOT ONLY CLOSING THE DOOR ON PROGRESS, BUT WE'RE SABOTAGING EVERYTHING THAT WE FOUGHT FOR!... EVERYTHING THAT THE COUNTRY STANDS FOR! And one day, we're gonna find ourselves at the bottom of the heap, instead of king of the hill, having no idea how we got there; buying our radios and our cars from our former enemies!... I don't believe that's gonna happen; I *can't* believe it, cuz... if I ever, stop believing in plain old common horse-sense of the American people... there's no way I could get out of bed in the morning... Thank you.

The car of tomorrow… today.

Aw, what's the difference - fifty or fifty million. That's only machinery!… It's the idea that counts, Abe… The dream…

"Big ships fine," Confucius say. "Rowboats long in tooth, make big noise, go nowhere."

Does that look like a car to you? THAT, is a gold mine I'm handing you on a silver platter.

Now how can you say that? You haven't even heard my ideas yet.