Last Auto Reviews Blog: Lost Checker Dealerships aplenty

Lost Checker Dealerships aplenty

Charlie's Auto Service, Tuscon, AZ

While poking around on the Checker Taxi Stand recently, I found a few scraps of information on old Checker dealerships. While Checker did, to an extent, have a network of dealerships as we typically think of them, most civilian Checker sales were done through independent dealers (and dealers of independents) who sold the occasional Checker to supplement their normal sales, or were done by cab companies that placed an order for an extra Checker or two when they placed their fleet orders for the year. One example of the former is DeWitt Motors in Akron, Ohio, which we already noted as an AMC dealership.

In poking around the Taxi Stand, we did come across the above latter-day photo of “Checker Charlie” Broder’s former Checker dealership at 228 East Sixth Street in Tucson, Arizona. Gotta love the aesthetics of the place.

I wanted to find out more, so I checked with John Weinhoeft, the editor of The Checkerboard News, who just happened to be compiling a list of known (as of 1972) and suspected Checker dealerships for the Summer 2009 issue of the newsletter, which includes about half a dozen overseas dealerships. So now we have a list similar to the 1983 AMC dealership list.

John also reminded us that the Checker factory itself also served as a dealership. In fact, for a period in the 1960s when Checker wanted to build its civilian sales, the company offered to pay your way to the dealer to pick up your new civvy Checker, kinda like those fancy Europeans with their programs offering factory delivery. Located on North Pitcher Street in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the Checker factory still stands today. How much longer – with Checker going through the throes of bankruptcy – is anybody’s guess.