This was a short-lived experiment, like a number of others in the past in the US. The Perkins 4.236, a four cylinder making 82 hp, was offered for one year in Checkers, and then it disappeared, in a cloud of smoke. Gas prices were reaching an inflation-adjusted historic low in the late 60s, and the extra cost of a noisy, slow and rough diesel engine just didn’t appeal. Leave that to Mercedes…
Well, anyone interested in refinement certainly wouldn’t be buying a Checker anyways.
Still, it’s hard to imagine anything more durable.
Never heard of this before. But then again, Checker isn’t exactly a brand I know much about anyhow.
But when it comes to diesel, and having grown up on a farm, I know enough about them and have always liked them. Between myself and other family members, we’ve owned a few of them. For me, that would be 3 of the 5.7L V8 (Olds 98, Buick Park Ave and Cadillac DeVille and loved every one of them) and 1 of the 4.3L V6 in a Buick Century. I also had one 1985 MB 300TD. I purchased every one of those used and they all had a ton of miles on them. They ran great and I never had any issues except for the MB which gave me problems with the trans with a shifting issue that was difficult and expensive to fix. In a more modern era, I had a 2014 Chevy Cruze diesel that was fantastic. That’s one I wish I would have kept.
That Perkins diesel got around, in addition to the occasional car, it was a common tractor engine, a Volvo, European Dodge, and Hyundai truck engine and I personally worked with these in Vermeer wood chippers and IIRC Caterpillar backhoes
That’s right. For some reason the “Perkins” sounded familiar, but now that you say it I do recall it being in tractors.
According to the Googles, Checker had a total production for 1968 of 5477 units, which included 992 non-taxis.
There’s a really in-depth article about Checker Diesels at the Internet Checker Taxicab Archive which suggests that there were 175 Diesels produced for 1968 and an additional 149 for 1969, but it’s not clear how many were sold domestically vs. for export. In 1967, Checker produced 90 Diesel cabs for export to Israel.
http://www.icta.club/checker-diesels-whole-story/
I think the total number of all Checkers exported to Israel was higher, and they were all diesels (Perkins and GM later). That Perkins was the engine of choice for all 7-seater US made cabs in Israel (there were also some Mopar products and few locally-made Studebakers). It was smelly, clattery and the cars so fitted lacked anything resembling performance but with our road conditions back then more power was not needed. They were used in cities but also long distance as competition to bus and train services – the pic shows one descending what is now Highway 1 from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. Slightly more expensive than the equivalent route bus but also more comfortable (unless you had to sit on the jump seats). Oh, and the competition (Peugeot, Mercedes-Benz and Fiat) was just as bad (or good, depending on one’s PoV).
I wonder, based on Evan’s comment, if most of these were intended for export…and then to Paul’s point, quickly discovered that across the pond, there was already a diesel car that was considerably more attractive and had a dealer infrastructure to support it.
I’d imagine that it must have been something of a pain to drive a diesel car in the US in the late 1960s. And what taxi company would (particularly at that time) want to have to deal with both gas and diesel vehicles in the same fleet?
Perkins was eventually bought out by Caterpillar, as they were the source of engines for Cat’s smaller equipment. We call them ‘Perkapillars’.
I heard that a few 1979-81 Checkers were built with Olds 350 diesels, but I have never seen one.
Correct on the later models. Using that engine was a bad decision, it finished Checker off in Israel (I think it was ordered by a court to repurchase all the cars sold with that unit, something which could not have been very helpful for Checker at that stage. The same applied to Oldsmobile but Olds was a part of the GM empire where such loses were written off and forgotten within 5 seconds).
Were these Perkins Diesels two or four stroke ? .
God bless ’em but Checkers were heavy cars, I imagine the Diesel version was as slow as my 1982 Mercedes 240D Diesel four cylinder, just 67 HP .
-Nate
Four stroke, my Superminx had a factory perkins option,
Thanx you Sir .
With older naturally aspirated Diesels I have a saying :
” uphill slow, down hill fast – distance first and safety last” .
It turns out my 1982 240D Mercedes sedan will go exactly 88 MPH down hill with the throttle pinned .
-Nate
Studebaker tried using the Perkins diesel in the early ’60’s. Being somewhat familiar with NYC traffic back then, I figure the Perkins would have had a difficult time keeping up. Can hear the horns blaring. Not good.
4 stroke. Now a Checker powered by a 2 stroke Detroit 3-53 would be interesting!
Very noisy too.
Broadway would have moved to another city if all of the NYC Checker cabs were running Detroit Diesels. Nobody would have heard any of the show. A 3500 lb brick of a car ( no aerodynamics) being propelled by 82 gross hp would translate to about 60 net hp? Those engines would be screaming from one traffic light to the next.
Exactly, who wants a taxi ride in a screaming and clanking cab that smokes and smells. Might as well take the bus.
Donaldo, our buses were not much better… At least you got to sit in the cab, not always the case on buses.
Not relevant in Israel of the 60s and 70s, our speed limit was 55 MPH and on many roads you were happy to average 30 MPH:)
Bus ought to be a lot cheaper though. I am thinking that the conditions in Israel at the time would be somewhat more favorable for diesel power than here in New York. Seems that diesel engines needed further development. Ultimately, the market decides. The fares were the same. I nearly always chose the subway or “L” in New York or Chicago and had my own car as well that I used if I was on a date or doing grocery shopping. It’s good that they kept on trying even though regular gasoline was going for about 34 cents per gallon then. Later on In the 70’s I remember Dodge and Peugeot diesel cabs here having similar drawbacks. For the few times I needed to use a cab, I would let these pass and try for a Checker with Ventvisors. The Ventvisors were a pretty good indication that I would get an owner-operator cab rather than someone who rented a cab by the shift.
Thats what makes them slow revs do not equate to speed change up if you want to go faster with a NA diesel
Some more diesel Checkers in Israel
I wonder how sales numbers would have looked in 1973-74 if they had stuck with it. That was around the time with the cab company in Fort Wayne bought a batch of Peugeot diesels. Those were not around long, but a Checker diesel might have been a better alternative for a company looking for fuel savings.
Seems that every time I saw one of the Puegeot diesels in NYC, the better part of the back end would be covered with greasey black soot. They were small too. “Yellow” cab fares were uniformly set by the T&L Commission in NYC. Never noticed a diesel of any make in the NY suburbs back then.
From the late 60s to the mid 00s all taxis in Uruguay were Diesels. During the 70s and 80s, with imports relatively restricted, we had Argentinian Chevys, Dodge Polaras, Torinos (i.e., Rambler) with mostly this very same engine. Some kept their 3 on the tree, others had 3 on the floor, others had 4 on the floor. There were all kinds of American cars with smallish Diesels over the early 70s. One I remember with a smile was a ’57 Fairline 500 sedan, which proudly sported on its grille and its trunk lid a “BMC 2.2 DIESEL” chromed tag.
I also remember riding on a 68 Impala livery car, used for funerals, which had the Perkins and kept the Powerglide. The honored and the car were probably about as fast….