Kaiser Frazer outside door handles on the Tucker

[Gordie]

There is a new antique car museum in Southern California called the Lew Webb Classic Car Museum and it is loaded with mostly high end classic cars.  I got to visit it yesterday and they have a beautifully restored Tucker in their collection.  I guess I have seen at least twenty Tuckers over the years and I never noticed that they use '47-'48 Kaiser Frazer rear outside door handles on all four doors  They use rears because the Tucker has a separate door lock under the handles.  They also have inside push button door release handles like the K-F but they look different.  I notice that they also use 1941 Lincoln steering wheels and sawed part of the top horn ring off to give a different appearance.  We were not allowed to open the doors of the cars and I am curious to know what else was borrowed from other cars.

[Fid]

Hi Gordie, I remember seeing a black Tucker in the Henry Ford museam in Dearborn. I distinctly remember the outside door handles on it being the same as those on our 1948 Kaiser Custom which was parked out in the parking lot at the time.  I also saw a gold Tucker in the traveling Smithsonian exhibit when it came through town in 1996. I remember the first thing I did was look the outside door handles to see if my memories of the one in Dearborn were correct and they were. The gold example in that exhibit proved to me that the Tucker cars most certainly used 1947/48 Kaiser door handles on the outside. I did not realize that they would have been only rear ones. Good catch on that. Seems Tucker got his handles from the same place KF did.
I think someone noted this on imdb.com under the trivia section for the movie "Tucker: The Man and His Dream."

[Gordie]

Hi Fid,  Many of the car makers used similar parts.  I don't know if you ever noticed that the '51 Kaiser rear deck handle is the same as Studebaker except for the names and of course many mechanical parts interchange which is lucky for all of us.

[Fid]

I never knew that about the Stude trunk latch Gordie!  I'll have to watch for one this summer. There's always a good supply of Studies around at the car shows here.

[Logan]

The December, 1972 issue of Special Interest Autos (#14) verifies that "Inside and outside door handles are same as those used by Kaiser-Frazer and Willys," although, obviously the inside handles are not exactly the same.  Perhaps they mean the same push-button style, but different hardware for the buttons and rims.  The magazine goes on to say "Prototypes use Lincoln steering wheels."  I'm not sure if they mean that some Tuckers use any other kind of steering wheel.  I assume all Tuckers qualify as prototypes.

[joefrazer]

 Tucker outside door handles are the same as 47-48 KF rear handles. I have one still in it's original box and it matches the KF part. The inside door parts do share a few pieces with Tucker. Tucker also had a novel seat arrangement. The lower cushions were the same, front and rear. This was so that as the front wore, you could swap it with the rear and start all over again. It's said that the 47-48 KF front seat lower will fit a Tucker but I've never had the two cars side by sode to compare.
As for the Studebaker trunk handle matching that of a 51K, close but no cigar. Put them side by side and you'll see that they are quite different.

[HJ-ETEX]

A Studebaker trunk handle isn't going to just bolt on a Kaiser deck lid. It took me a while to get things arranged, but if you go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/k513/sets/72157618442052805 there are images of 51 Kaiser and 50 Champion trunk handles. Basically, the Studebaker deck lid has a peak in the sheet metal while the Kaiser is curved. If you did put a Studebaker handle on a Kaiser, it looks to me that there would be a crescent shaped gap between the handle and sheet metal.

[Gordie]

I do not think that anyone would want to put the Stude handle on a Kaiser even if it fit but it is amazing how similar they look.  They were obviously made by the same company.