Taxi! Taxi!

For decades, if you hailed a taxi in a major U.S. city the odds were that you would be riding in a Checker Cab. The Checker Motor Corporation was established by a Chicago clothier named Morris Markin. Marken when the owner of an auto body manufacturer defaulted on a $15,000 personal loan. He renamed it Markin Automobile Body. Their biggest client was Commonwealth Motors, a firm that manufactured taxi cabs.

So in 1922 Markin took control of Commonwealth and merged it with his body company to create The Checker Motor Corporation. Shortly thereafter he established a taxi cab company, Checker Taxi. In the early 1920s Chicago was an unruly city and that spread to the competitive taxi cab business. It go so out of hand that Markin's home was firebombed. That's when he move his company to Kalamazoo, MI.

The first cabs Checker made were four cylinder and later six cylinder models ranging from 22.5 horse power to 40 horse power. The hallmark of these cars was their reliability and durability. They were designed to do heavy city driving all day long. The cars needed to be tough and they were.

Gaining a reputation for their quality, helped spur sales but the fact that by the end of the 1920s Markin had acquired both the Yellow Cab Company and the Parmalee Transportation Company, his two biggest rivals, added to the expansion of his market. Markin shut down Yellow Cab's manufacturing arm, essentially snubbing General Motors. GM responded by creating the Terminal Taxi Company and the fights and fare wars that broke out in New York City prompted the creation of the New York Taxi Cab Commission.

By 1940, Markin's firm was the largest taxi cab company in the country. It reached the point that by 1964 New York went after Markin on anti-trust charges, claiming that since he owned both the manufacturing end as well as the taxi service which limited drivers from buying any other type of vehicle. The suit was settled at little expense to Markin.

Starting in the late 1950s and carrying on into the 1960s, Markin began manufacturing and selling his Checker cars to consumers. The quality of the rugged vehicles was the main selling point. The car was never intended to be a huge seller. For example, in 1962 almost 3000 sedans and station wagons were sold to individuals. This represented 20% of the company's output for that year. Consumer sales declined through the 1970s but Checker still did well manufacturing cabs and bodies for other companies.

In 1970 Markin died. By then the company had switched over to using Chevy engines. Cabs could be ordered with either a 230 cubic inch inline six or a 283 cubic inch small block V 8. Later models got the 280 cubic inch inline six or the 350 cubic inch V 8.

After Markin's death the company continued to expand, buying various other firms and establishing deals to manufacture or stamp metals for still others. One of the largest contracts came from GM. As changes came to the taxi cab business, these other outputs were what kept Checker going strong.

In 2008, due to the recession and high gas prices, GM drastically slowed production of its cars. Checker saw a significant drop in production that crushed its bottom line. At this same time, company CEO David Markin was swindled in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

By 2009 Checker was forced into bankruptcy and by July it had been sold to the Narmco Group.

Seen here is a 1979 Checker Marathon.