Checker, the All American Taxi

2015 | Transportation

Nothing portrays the American taxicab like the classic Checker, yet the founder of Checker Motors, Morris Markin got into the automobile industry by accident. A tailor by trade, he was looking for a new home for the profits he had made from his tailoring company and placed his money in an auto body manufacturing plant. When the plant's main customer, a taxicab making company ran into hard times, he bought both the body making company and the taxicab maker.That was in 1922, and over the next sixty years, Checker Motors would outlive all other makes of American purpose-built taxis. The A8 to A12 range, made from 1956 until 1982, is the most famous model, and is the focus of this specially-commissioned full colour book. Even though it has been out of service for many years, and out of production for even longer, it is the vehicle film and TV programme makers still want this vehicle to represent taxi transportation for their modern day characters.In this richly-illustrated book, Checker aficionados Ben Merkel and Joe Fay give us the low-down on the historic models and many of its limousine and private car variants, in the USA and in other parts of the world.Checker - the All-American Taxi features:The background history of the companyOn-street pictures of Checker cabs in service across the USA and overseasPictures of rare limousine, Aerobus, private and medical versionsThe Galva projects - new generation Checker models that were never put into production Fully informative captionsShort DescriptionNothing portrays the American taxicab like the classic Checker.

Even though it has been out of service for many years, it is still in deamnd by film and TV programme makers. This richly-illustrated book focusses on the history of the most famous models, the A-8 to the A-11 and many of its limousine and private car variants. Illustrated with archive shots, posed photographs and on-street images.

Ben Merkel (Author)

Joe Fay (Author)