What Auto Maker Touted the 'Pop-Out' Windshield Safety Feature ?
    Today's auto glass designs focus on the windshield remaining intact, so as to make the airbags work and to keep the occupants from ejecting from the vehicle.

    But the 1948 Tucker automobile touted a 'Pop-Out' windshield so passengers would not suffer injuries by striking it.

    Besides its pop-out windshield, the Tucker proclaimed enhanced passenger safety with the addition of a padded dashboard, and a place where the front-seat passenger could crouch in the event of a collision.

  The Tucker never
entered full production.
Text from a Tucker Sales Brochure:
"Safety Windshield - Laminated safety glass is mounted in sponge rubber fastening so that a hard blow from within will eject it in one piece. Thus, greatest collision hazard-lacerations or fractured skull from striking windshield-is entirely eliminated. Windows are armor-plate glass which disintegrates without cutting edges or slivers."

Related Glass Information on the Tucker:
Melvin D. Barger (an ex-LOF employee), writing in the January 1989 issue of The Freeman, a publication of The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., gave his take on if Tucker would have been able to secure a glass supplier.

Excerpts from 'The Tucker Car: Did the Big Guys Do It In?'

    "Ever since Tucker's short-lived car making venture collapsed in late 1948, myths about him have circulated in the country. The myths have become part of a legend that strikes close to the opinions held by a lot of people. These myths are worth reviewing because they also touch economic fallacies which are part of the general folklore."

    "There is also scant reason to believe, as some do, that the Detroit automakers bullied their suppliers into refusing to sell parts to Tucker. I had personal knowledge of this as a result of being associated with Libbey-Owens-Ford for 14 years. I learned that Libbey-Owens-Ford had fabricated Tucker's pop-out windshield at a time when LOF supplied 100 percent of General Motors' automotive glass. Had Tucker gone into production, LOF would have continued as his supplier, just as it also supplied glass to other auto and truck manufacturers. (Ford Motor Company had its own glass plants.) "

    "Moreover, sales managers are adamant in denying that any carmaker would prevent a supplier from selling to other companies. Rather than making suppliers totally dependent on them, carmakers are more interested in having vendors who are soundly financed and are likely to have a number of customers in order to survive the times when auto production is cut back."