Automotive History: An Illustrated History Of Checker Motors

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– Posted on May 31, 2024

(first posted 8/25/2012. Updated 6/1/2018)

For sixty years, Checker Motors had a record unbroken run of profits building a few thousand cars per year in a small little factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In 1981, it posted its first loss, $488,326, and its owner made good on his threat to stop production of the iconic Marathon if his workers didn’t accept wage concessions. But Checker continued to stamp out body parts for GM into 2009, including for the Buick LaCrosse.

The Carpacolypse of 2009 finally shuttered the ancient plant, but no need to shed a tear for the original owner’s son, David Markin: his wealth was recently estimated at over $100 million, until the Bernie Madoff scandal, anyway. And it was all due to a shrewd investment of $15,000 that his father made in 1920, which put him in the driver’s seat of Checker Motors. Let’s take a ride through Checker’s history. Taxi!

To understand the origins of Checker, one has to know that the taxi business was once very different than now: two or more companies competed fiercely in each city for the growing and lucrative business in those days. If you want the remarkable details of shady deals, graft and stock manipulation that created the two largest cab companies, Yellow and Checker, head over to coachbuilt.com‘s very detailed history. A slightly less detailed but also excellent Checker history is also at checkertaxistand.com. Let’s just say the upshot was that Checker Cabs wanted a custom built taxi, and somehow the son of a poor Russian tailor, Morris Markin, cleverly managed to manipulate himself (and some stock holdings he managed to get revalued) into the position to provide it, the first Checker Model C of 1922.

It’s important to remember that in the twenties, there were dozens of small car manufacturers, so in its early days, Checker’s scale wasn’t at all unusual. And the factory instantly became a profitable enterprise. And Markin expanded his holdings with Checker stock and profits including some large taxi operating companies and in later years truck trailer building (Great Dane) and other businesses.

During this period, taxis competed on prestige, size and comfort, as most working folks stuck to taking the streetcar or bus. The Checkers from the late twenties were large handsome cars, and as in the old coach-built tradition, often had a rear roof section that could be lowered in nice weather, as much as to be seen as to see.

Checker styling started becoming a bit adventurous in the thirties, but the full degree of that was still a few years off.

As always, Checkers were designed specifically for the job, both in their layout and rugged construction.

The all-new Model A designed in 1939 and went into production the following year. It featured a highly bizarre front end whose only redeeming feature was that it was recognizable from half a mile away. The debate about who designed it is still unresolved, but actually, from the front end back, it was quite a conservatively styled sedan with a highly unusual feature.

It had a remarkably advanced (and patented) optional steel rear laundalet roof section that could be lowered as seen here.

Needless to say, Checkers dominated the New York streetscape, as in this moody shot of Times Square from the forties.

Rather unusual for such a small company, Checker ambitiously explored advanced designs during the forties, including this one-off rear-engined prototype. Looking all the world like a giant Fiat 600 Multipla, it was probably for the best that it was not developed further.

But an FWD prototype, with the straight six in a transverse arrangement, was built and seriously considered. This is the first I’ve seen or heard about this, and it’s quite a remarkably advanced design for the times, looking much more French than Kalamazoo. Technical difficulties with the FWD transaxle killed it, probably for the best in terms of preserving the Checker’s reliability reputation.

Instead, the very conventional new A2 of 1947 had traditional styling, and with minor retouches, became the iconic cab of the post war era.

Like the legendary later Aerobus, Checker was building extended wheelbase vehicles in the forties, like this six door, twelve passenger wagon. These were the shuttle buses of their day.

The Checker Coach is an often-forgotten chapter in the Checker history. CC’s Bus-master Jim Brophy did the full story on them here.

In 1955, an all new Checker was developed in the advanced styling studios (a corner of the factory partitioned off with drapes). The new A8 was designed to meet Manhattan’s new taxi regulations, and featured independent suspension on the front for the first time. Not that it made the Checker famous for its ride, however. The suspension engineering department lived in the janitor’s closet.

Interior space was always the highlight of the Checkers, and the Marathon’s tall roof, totally flat floor and two folding jump seats meant that up to five patrons could be accommodated in the rear compartment alone. Guess who got the jump seats? The pretty young lady. Beats sitting in the guys’ laps, anyway.

Here’s one of Checker’s many chassis engineers, pointing out the finer details of Checker’s legendary X-reinforced frame, the source of its ruggedness and flat floor.

The six and eight-door Aerobuses were the stuff of legends in their day. Unlike today’s stretch limos with their cut and welded frame extensions, these long boys sat on a completely unique and specially designed frame, and enjoyed a high degree of structural integrity.

Not surprisingly, the rugged Checker frame lent itself well to custom coachbuilding, like this Swiss ambulance. It was the Checker’s taxi cab image that probably kept it from more success in the US as a limo and hearse source. If folks couldn’t afford a Cadillac while they were still alive, they at least wanted to ride to their graves in one.

It should be pointed out that Checker production wasn’t all directed to taxis after about 1960 or so; possibly sooner. The Superba and Marathon sedans and wagons were marketed to owners who wanted no part of Detroit’s annual styling changes as well as its taxi-cab ruggedness.

Checker also made an extended body sedan, and pushed it as a limo alternative, including versions with padded roofs and even an opera window. But time was moving on, and the garish seventies made the Checkers look like stale bread.

Ghia made a one-off on a Checker chassis, the 1968 Centurion. I’m not quite sure whether that was at Checker’s instigation, but more than likely so. Who else? It had a very un-taxi like Italian leather and wood interior along with the requisite Nardi wood wheel.

In any case, it’s a handsome idea of what a modern Checker could have looked like. It has similarities with a number of contemporary cars; everything from a Toyota Crown to an Opel Kapitan.

Checker Motors operated most profitably with an annual production of 6-8k cars, but after 1970 that became increasingly difficult, due to major markets like NYC loosening their taxi regulations to allow conventional sedans to operate. They were obviously cheaper for the Big Three to build, and the fleet dumping practices of the seventies was Checker’s coffin nail as a producer of cars.

Checker had no real plans or ambitions for a post-Marathon future. Scion David Markin was more interested in playing tennis than Checkers.

The only significant changes made were those required by government regulations, such as the new bumpers beginning in 1974. Checkers were particularly impressive, but then it suited their environment. They should have had them all along.

In march of 1977, former GM President Ed Cole bought 50% of Checker for $6 million and began plans to build a completely new car for a new era. His concept was to build the new taxi, called Galva I, essentially a lengthened VW Rabbit. His untimely death some 90 days later death at the controls of his personal airplane was tragic. But work continued based on the VW prototype, although further testing found it to be unsatisfactory, with structural weaknesses.

There is no known image available of the Checker Rabbit; this one above is a similar concept built by the Wayne bus company. It too did not move past the prototype stage.

In 1981, four years later, Checker founder’s son David Markin revived a similar concept, this time based on GM’s new X Car Citation platform. Like the VW, it was initially a stretched Citation, as seen above. But once again, for various reasons that was not deemed a viable solution, undoubtedly because they would have been dependent on the Citation’s on-going production. As it is, the Citation’s lifespan was pretty short.

So a completely new body was conceived and styled, called the Galva II. The wooden body buck is seen above.  To bring this idea into full development and production would have cost many millions, and Markin soon pulled the plug, at least in part due to the nasty recession of 1981, which would also be the beginning of the end of Checker’s marathon. A more detailed account of the FWD Galvas (although not without a few minor errors) can be found here.

In 1981, during the recession, Checker had its only posted loss after some sixty years, having survived the Depression profitably, if on a smaller scale.  In a contentious affair, Checker decided to end production rather than give in to union demands. The last Marathon rolled off the production line on July 12, 1982.

But Checker continued to build parts for other manufacturers until 2009, when the downturn finally swamped them too. The little factory that hummed away for almost ninety years has been razed, leaving just the footings to mark where one of the more unusual automotive stories played out. Now it’s a pilgrimage site for lovers of the brand.

Related:

CC Checker Marathon: The Brooklyn Bruiser  W. Stopford

CC 1967 Checker Marathon Wagon: Still being Driven by Its Original Owners  PN

CC Checker Aerobus   PN

The Checker Motor Coach: The Frequently Forgotten Bus by Checker  Jim Brophy

My Checkered Career With Checker Cabs:  Kevin Martin