Editing Preston Tucker (section)

==Early life (1903–1933)==

Preston Tucker was born on September 21, 1903, on a [[peppermint]] farm near [[Capac, Michigan]]. His father was a railroad engineer named Shirl Harvey Tucker (1880–1907), and his mother was Lucille Caroline (née Preston) Tucker (1881–1960). He grew up outside [[Detroit]] in the suburb of [[Lincoln Park, Michigan]]. Tucker was raised by his mother, a teacher, after his father died of [[appendicitis]] when Preston was three or four years old.

First learning to drive at age 11, Tucker was obsessed with [[Car|automobiles]] from an early age.  At age 16, Preston Tucker began purchasing late model automobiles, repairing and refurbishing them to sell for a profit. He attended the [[Cass Technical High School]] in Detroit, but he quit school and landed a job as an office boy for the [[Cadillac Motor Company]], where he used [[roller skates]] to make his rounds more efficiently. In 1922, young Tucker joined the Lincoln Park Police Department against the pleas of his mother, his interest stirred by his desire to drive and ride the fast, high-performance [[police car]]s and [[Police motorcycle|motorcycles]]. His mother had him removed from the LPPD, pointing out to police officials that at 19, he was below the department's minimum required age.

Tucker and his new wife, Vera, whom he married in 1923, then took over a six-month lease on a gas station near Lincoln Park, running the station together. Vera would run the station during the day while Preston worked on the [[Ford Motor Company]] assembly line. After the lease ran out, Tucker quit Ford and returned to the LPPD, but in his first winter back he was banned from driving police vehicles after using a blowtorch to cut a hole in the dashboard of a cruiser to allow engine heat to warm the cabin.

During the last couple of months at the gas station, Tucker began selling [[Studebaker]] cars on the side. He met an automobile salesman, Michael Dulian, who later became sales manager for the Tucker Corporation. Dulian hired Tucker as a car salesman at his Detroit dealership. Tucker did very well, but the dealership was a long drive from his Lincoln Park home and so Tucker quit and briefly returned to the LPPD for the last time. A few months later, Dulian, still impressed with Tucker's immediate success as a salesman, invited Tucker to move south with him to [[Memphis, Tennessee]], to work as a sales manager. Dulian was transferred a couple of years later, but Tucker stayed in Memphis and was a salesman for Ivor Schmidt ([[Stutz Motor Company|Stutz]]) and John T. Fisher Motor Company (Chrysler), where he became general sales manager. While managing Chrysler sales in Memphis, Tucker made a connection with [[Pierce-Arrow]]. In 1933, Tucker moved to [[Buffalo, New York]], and became regional sales manager for Pierce-Arrow automobiles, but after only two years, he moved back to Detroit and worked as a [[Dodge]] salesman for [[Cass Motor Sales]].