The spotless aqua paint and full wheel covers of this Checker Marathon make me think this wasn’t once a taxi cab, as so many of its brethren were. Which makes me wonder: just who was buying Checkers besides taxi companies?
Not that buying a Checker as a private buyer was foolhardy. In fact, it was pretty sensible. There were proven mechanicals, including a range of Chevrolet engines from 1965 onwards. Parts were never an issue as the sheetmetal was unchanged for its 21-year production run. And just look at that rear seat – talk about legroom! Nevertheless, typically 90% of Marathon production was destined for taxi use.
The lack of visual changes makes it hard to pin down the exact year of this Marathon. The slim bumpers peg it as being pre-1974, while the presence of front seat headrests would indicate it was built in 1969 or later.
That means under the hood is either a 250 cubic-inch Chevy six with a two-barrel carburetor or a 350 cubic-inch Chevy V8 with either a two or four barrel carb. If it’s a ’69 model, that would mean it’d have the 327 cubic-inch V8.
If you haven’t read the late Kevin Martin’s brilliant feature on his years driving Checker cabs, do so. In it, he praises the Checker for its durability and passenger room but criticizes it for their manoeuvrability. These were big cars albeit not full-size – measuring approximately 199 inches long, pre-5MPH bumpers, they were about as long as a GM A-Body sedan. However, they weighed a good 300-400 pounds more than an A-Body thanks to the Checker’s rugged X-frame construction.
Unlike an A-Body sedan, there was no pretence of style. The Checker was blocky and upright like a K.T. Keller-era Plymouth, designed to provide as spacious a cabin for passengers as possible. A Marathon was almost 10 inches taller than an A-Body sedan.
The first year Checker sales broke out taxi and non-taxi sales was 1967. That year, Checker built 5,622 Marathons but only 935 weren’t taxis. This held throughout the 1970s, with a few thousand Checkers being built each year but only a few hundred going to buyers who weren’t taxi companies. Those figures include the other members of the Checker line-up: the wagon and the Town Custom (later Marathon Deluxe), which boasted a 9-inch longer wheelbase (for a total of 129 inches). There was also an eight-door Aerobus wagon which Paul covered here.
One thing that would have discouraged private buyers, however, was the Marathon’s price. In 1969, a Marathon sedan retailed for $3,290. That was almost $800 more than the cheapest Chevelle sedan with the same 250 cubic-inch six under the hood. Any private sales, therefore, were minuscule while even taxi volumes began to decline as taxi companies embraced regular sedans from Chevrolet, Ford and Plymouth.
The one bonus a Marathon sedan had over, say, a Chevelle sedan – besides the more upright cabin – was the availability of a couple of jump seats to bring total passenger capacity to eight. But wouldn’t most families have bought an intermediate station wagon with a third row of seats?
Considering the Marathon’s heft, price premium and cumbersome handling, just who were the few hundred people each year buying these for non-taxi use? Whoever bought this one, however, deserves kudos for keeping it in such lovely condition all these years.
Photographed in Mount Pleasant, Vancouver, BC in June 2019.
Note: a rerun of an older post.
Related Reading:
My full-length historical piece on the Checker Marathon.
Automotive History: An Illustrated History Of Checker Motors
I may have said this first time around, but I recall seeing private Checkers owned by people with disabled family members. Ingress and egress was a lot better than ordinary sedans, and there was space to store a wheelchair in the cabin.
My aunt STRONGLY considered a Checker in the early 70’s. She wanted a car that was built like a tank, very durable, and would run forever. She had NO interest in styling, special features, or ANYTHING ELSE! She also considered going to a car dealer who supplied the Amish population, as they special-ordered cars with chrome trim delete options, and no special features.
Amish had cars?
Usually cars were owned by a sect known as Mennonites. Some allowed chrome bumpers and some required painting them black.
Seen a Checker once, it was in a museum dressed as a taxi cab, never seen one on the road, they seem to be a light truck with a sedan body fitted, durable as an anvil with soviet era styling.
I once worked with a lady who daily-drove a Checker Marathon. It fit her eccentric personality to a “T”.
The text of the ad says the limousine was “designed for world markets”. Makes sense. Other makers of lower-cost limos like Chrysler and Hudson sold quite a few to foreign governments and foreign royalty.
The Checker limousine was used by American embassies around the world. Especially where we did not want to project a glittery Cadillac image!
Another nice survivor .
I remember the occasional privately owned Checker, pops even considered buying one in the id 1970’s .
-Nate
The profile of the black limo in the ad photo looks surprisingly like a Fintail Mercedes, except for the stretched wheelbase of course. That similarity doesn’t come across to me in more normal perspectives, or in the real world. Though it’s been a few months since I’ve seen a Checker in the wild, and I think the most recent sighting (or two) was a wagon.
My parents had 1951 and 56 Plymouths during their first 15 years of marriage. When I came along they decided it was time for a new car to cart me and my 4 older siblings around in.
My mother told me that she and Dad had seriously considered a Checker. Being the most “Kelleresque” contraption on the market at the time must have made it appealing to their rather austere selves.
In the end, they bowed to pressure from my tween-aged siblings, who would have been mortified by such stodgy wheels, They went with a fairly nicely optioned 1970 Chevrolet Kingswood (no faux woodgrain) wagon in a beautiful deep red color with the 454 V8!
There was a rather frumpy family at my church though who had a “civilian” Checker in dark blue with a padded roof and opera windows.
Just where did a civilian go to buy a new Checker? I don’t remember ever seeing or even knowing about a Checker dealer. I’m guessing their dealer network sold these as a side to their main business which was probably International trucks or some such. I do remember seeing small Checker ads in the pages of Popular Mechanics or Popular Science, and one of those even did a road test of a Checker circa 1977.
I’m trying to imagine what these would have looked like back in 1956 when this body style was new, and not all that different looking than a ’56 Chevy or at least a ’54 Plymouth and more modern than the multitudes of early-1950s cars still on the road. I wonder if sales to private owners were easier back then when the car didn’t stand out all that much from everything else on the road. By the time I first learned about these they were already ’50s-style cars that stood out amongst 1970s cars.
I don’t know the cutoff dates but some time around 1970 Checker started using standard Chevy steering wheels without horn rings, GM (Saginaw) steering columns with keyhole on column, and rejigged taillights with the top two round lights both red. I’m guessing this car was from around 1969-70.
IIRC, there were no dealers- non-commercial cars were picked up at the factory or possibly tacked on to a taxi company delivery. The running gear was stock GM, so parts and service were widely available.
There were a few Checker Marathons in my locale- they were enormous cars.
There were indeed dealers, usually in metropolitan areas that would support taxi fleets. How else would warranty work be done? Just for perspective a civilian Checker was much more mainstream than a Subaru or a Saab back then.
The only time I saw a Checker, of any kind, was August 1979 in NYC, of course.
Lucille Ball owned a Checker wagon.
NYC writer Fran Liebowitz is also a fan, from a 2011 NY Times article:
“Ms. Lebowitz bought her Checker, a pale gray 1979 Marathon, for $9,000 in 1978 with the better part of a book advance. “This was the first thing I bought, which shows how impractical I am,” she said, tossing a cigarette onto West Houston Street. “Everyone tried to dissuade me from buying it.”
She wanted a Bentley or a Rolls-Royce, which she could not afford. This was the most desirable alternative: “They also made a limousine, which was $1,000 more, and which I had to be talked out of buying, because there’s no car too big, too flashy, for Fran.”
The appeal was purely visual, she said. “It has a kind of, like, ‘car’ look, like a child’s cartoon of a car,” she said, taking a gingerly turn onto Bleecker Street. “I knew Roy Lichtenstein — you know, the painter? — and he loved these cars, because he thought it was like such a cartoon-looking car. Once I pulled up somewhere where he was, and he said, ‘You expect a family of ducks to come out of the back of this car.’ It has a very graphic silhouette.”
“The new one (the replacement for the Checker, a Nissan mini – van) has nothing to do with why people like Checkers,” she added. “The reason people like Checkers is not only because they are very roomy, etc., but because Checkers have flair. O.K.? Flair has nothing to do with technology. It’s a visual thing…”
“9K” was a chunk a change in “78”!
Who’d a thunk it?
This reply was supposed to be to the one above naming “Lucille Ball”, as a “Checker” owner. Not sure how I got it here.
My parents were exactly the sort of people who would buy a Checker Marathon, which they did in 1968. Our family of 6 had outgrown our aging 1959 English Ford Zephyr. Their previous car had been a 1956 Consul, which got destroyed in a head on collision that my Dad survived with a few scratches and bruises. Cars that I recall them cross shopping were the Jeep Wagoneer and the AMC Ambassador. Conventional offerings from the Big 3 weren’t really on their radar. So they bought a Checker with the Chevy 6, 3 speed manual, and Borg Warner overdrive. I think jump seats and a limited slip differential were the only other options, not even a radio. With unassisted steering and brakes, it was taxing to park, and sometimes one had to almost stand on the brake pedal to stop. But it had ample room for 6 or even 8, got 30 mpg highway and 20 mpg city. It stayed in the family for 18 years before it was sold. For all I know it could still be on the road.
So that’s who bought Checkers in the ’60s. People who wanted the world to know that they were practical and eschewed the vagaries of fashion and style. My Dad in particular enjoyed being thought of as a bit eccentric, and the Checker suited him perfectly. I’m cut from the same cloth, and sometimes wish I still had that car.
Our next door neighbors in Towson had a Checker sedan. He was seriously obese and it was easier for him to get in and out of. He replaced it with a ’71 or so Buick LeSabre and watching him struggle to enter and exit was not a pretty sight.
Any western “PA” folks who may remember the long gone “Nixon Hotel”, in “Butler PA”; family that owned it had “Checkers” as their personal rides.
Can recall two/ three over the years.
Last one was likely an early/ mid seventies, vintage.(blue)
Used to see it parked along “Muntz Ave”
“Eric703”, or another talented contributor can (likely) post some info/pics on the hotel
We did have a few “taxiing” there in town till about “72-3ish”, at the latest.
I wrote to the factory back when I was a kid. They sent me a lovely packet that I still have. Checkers were for people who were unable to buy Studebakers anymore. Road & Track did a road test on the sedan. It came included in my packet. Apparently some Mercedes Benz dealerships also handled Checker and they tended to appeal to the same demographic. The Medi-Car option was designed to be used by the disabled. Very easy to get a wheelchair in and out of. I always thought Checker should have made a raised 4 X 4 model of the wagon – it would have ruled.
I remember Checkers being used on the occasional Mission Impossible TV episode set in some fictional dictatorship intended to resemble an Iron Curtain country.
Producers probably figured they looked different enough for the role and likely were easier to obtain than a genuine Soviet block car. They fooled me as a kid.
One of my great uncles had a late 70s civilian Checker that was Maroon with a vinyl roof and opera windows, like PJ above. His brother drove a Mercedes 250 (W114) and I’m not sure what his other brother drove.
As an aside one of my father’s cousins was an NYC cab driver with his own medallion, but by the time I saw it he was driving a Chevy
“Medallion”?