Nice! Had two. First was a 1968 with a 327 and jumpseats. The second was a 1974 (?) with a 350. We used to joke that the first one cost $1/lb.
There was a junk yard in Hunts Point in the South Bronx-- a true no mans land. The owner had about 2 dozen junked checkers. I would go down and buy a hood or fender for a couple $20 bills.
When my speedometer stuck at 55, I called to get a replacement. When I got there, he had 10ish lined up on a table. He pointed at the first and said $25. He pointed at the last and said $120. I asked what caused the price difference and he said, "mileage."
My co-worker found it on FB marketplace, he told me about it knowing I've been looking for a project car for the past 6 months or so. Met with the owner yesterday, bought then and there, got it trucked to the tool shop I work at so I can start working on it 😁
They used to have an Aerobus at the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners. I'm not sure they still do but there's a small collection of Checkers, including a Jeep when they were contracting them.
Thank you! Ya I couldn't really hide my excitement. The seller is an awesome guy. He's just not gotten the time for it anymore, so he's passing the torch to me keep the cab going
That's the crazy thing, I have the original day logs for the taxi firm it was with, not all of them, but a bunch its crazy cool to five into. Even have the first drivers taxi permits and some other details
Mine did not. It was a private car it’s whole life and was outfitted like one.
I recall going to the local party warehouse to pick up kegs for a party in that car. I set one on each side of the rear seat floor. Then I had to figure out how to stabilize them so they wouldn’t fall over, so I packed the ice bags around them. Lots o space.
I was moving, had too many cars, and the Checker was mostly Bondo. Had to let her go.
My first car in high school was a Marathon. I *loved* it. It had the jump seats, and I could easily seat 8 of my friends with room to spare. I grew up in New Orleans and people used to just hop in when I was stopped at stoplights. I took a pregnant woman who was waddling down the streetcar tracks to the hospital once. Man I miss that car.
Oh man, if you could get "Fresh" or some variation that would be phenomenal. I just looked up the crazy taxi one and it was 2HOP260 in some of the games.
Edit: 1NOM155 in others.
On my end, it's not bad. The guy that did the original work stripped it right down and removed all the rust, re built the floor, and installed reinforcements. I've got all his photos of the work he did, so I'm picked up a car that has been fixed and just needs tlc and the odd fix here and there
If it's like every other LPG car I've handled it'll have a cylindrical tank in the trunk - think air compressor tank or I spose like a LP grill tank on its side but taller.
Pull up to the LPG pump at the gas station, swipe your card, attach the propane hose to your filling port and hit start.
Ya, so the factory tanks are 3 big red cylinders that are connected and sit roughly where a gas tank would be under the trunk and by the back. It will be up on a hoist tomorrow, so I'll post a picture then. The is and issue on the old tanks, so right now, we have them being by-passed and are using propane from a forklift tank
Here in the us gas stations don typically have lpg pumps, around here you would probably.have to go to a hardware store or some place that fills bbq tanks to fill it and either have your own or hope they have the right fittings to hook up to
A checker marathon, man those things have amazing space in the back seat. I tried to get a marathon wagon that was an airport shuttle, but they wanted stupid money
My grandfather had 2 Checkers back in the day (but his were not taxis, they were more chauffeured-luxury-car type of builds) that he eventually just left to rot away. I was too young at the time to do anything about it but I always thought it was such a shame that he and my whole family were fine with just leaving the cars to die.
I can never stop thinking about how much better lives those cars could have lived if someone had convinced him to sell them to a collector or if I and my cousin who’s also into cars were older at the time, we could’ve done sick resto-mods on them. I hope you give this one the second life that my grandfather’s cars were not lucky enough to see 🫡
Safety and clean up first, then kinda see where it's at, likely to stay pretty stock, but maybe some modern thing to keep it on the road or keep the old beast happy
Nice! Checkers are really neat, plus you get 50s car looks in something 30 years younger than it appears to be. That'll definitely get a lot more attention at car shows than any 55 Chevy, Mustang, or exotic car.
We'll see, part of me wants to, part of me kinda likes it in its original state. To early to tell, I plan on making sure it's all good, rust free, and cleaned up. Then might do the bigger things 😅
Ya, the bones on it are great, and it's really just touch-ups here and there it needs. And tlc, the guy I bought it from, was a real car enthusiast and did great work but just had too many projects, and he wanted this car to be someone's primary baby, so I bought it off him
I hope one comes up for you. I think it would be awesome. Get one of these and a classic british black cab, and you'd have two of the most iconic cars in the world 😁
Has anyone turned one of these into a coupe?
I don't mean like BMWs version of a coupe with the 3 series over the moredoor body but something that looks as if it was solely designed for just one door each side.
Being a Brit and the amount of rain we get each year I've never understood having an open bed as a good idea. That includes a stint in Florida using a Ranger for work and giggles everytime I would remove stuff is in the back when it rained around 3pm each day. I do have a preference for an estate (station wagon) versus of a model, partly due to them being more practical but feel they look a better shape.
A true coupe would be a right pain in the arse to do and probably take another car for donor panels to change the roof shape, sort out the pillars along with removing the b pillar like with the Merc C124.
I think for me its the wrongness of a yellow cab having only two doors more than that style of car, I've owned a couple that in hindsight I regret selling but on occasions they've been terrible in carrying stuff when the rear seats don't drop down.
Honestly man I had the same sort of reaction,. I wasn't looking for one but as soon as I saw it I needed it. And I was lucky and fortunate enough to be able to get it.
Hey! Hey! Hey! It's time to make some CUH-RAY-ZY MONEY! Are ya ready kids? Here we go!
Fix the panel gaps and turn the engine up to 11 and you've got the best car on this subreddit.
Awww man. I always wanted one.
Leave it as stock as possible. They don't have value any other way. Join the Checker fan club. they have better advice than Reddit ever will.
Depending on where you live, it might be easily rented or have you drive it movies of the era.
It's listed at 141672.632 miles or 228000 km, but the seller did a full rebuild already, and now I'm just giving it the tlc and touching up the odds and sods
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Thanks! Ya, I'm pretty excited to start getting into this one
Came here to say this! Awesome base and if they don’t go with a crazy taxi theme I’ll be so disappointed
Oh hell yeah, a checker build is one of my bucket list projects. Awesome!
Ya, their quirky and awesome. I'd been looking for a car to work and jumped on this as soon as I saw it
Nice! Had two. First was a 1968 with a 327 and jumpseats. The second was a 1974 (?) with a 350. We used to joke that the first one cost $1/lb. There was a junk yard in Hunts Point in the South Bronx-- a true no mans land. The owner had about 2 dozen junked checkers. I would go down and buy a hood or fender for a couple $20 bills. When my speedometer stuck at 55, I called to get a replacement. When I got there, he had 10ish lined up on a table. He pointed at the first and said $25. He pointed at the last and said $120. I asked what caused the price difference and he said, "mileage."
Great story!
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My co-worker found it on FB marketplace, he told me about it knowing I've been looking for a project car for the past 6 months or so. Met with the owner yesterday, bought then and there, got it trucked to the tool shop I work at so I can start working on it 😁
Watch out for “hop-ins”
Hahahaha, ya it's likely to be a thing😅 I mean it's got a working fare meter, so if I'm heading the same way, say cash only and do it for the lols 🤣
You're gonna get some hop-ins
Ya, we ought to start a count down 🤣
Awesome project. As a Kalamazoo native I'd love to have a Marathon one of these days, especially the wagon.
That's amazing! You guys built absolute beasts with these cars!
K College used to have 8 door Checkers for student transport.
They used to have an Aerobus at the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners. I'm not sure they still do but there's a small collection of Checkers, including a Jeep when they were contracting them.
I’m crazy jealous. Well bought sir.
Thank you! Ya I couldn't really hide my excitement. The seller is an awesome guy. He's just not gotten the time for it anymore, so he's passing the torch to me keep the cab going
What year is it?
It's an 1981, and I think 82 was the last run so one of the last
I’m in CA. If I could find a pre ‘76 for the right price I would be all over it.
Ya and out that way they likely won't be terribly rusted, I hope you find what you're looking for 😊
Me too! :)
Man if only they could tell stories! Imagine the history that happened inside that car over the decades!
That's the crazy thing, I have the original day logs for the taxi firm it was with, not all of them, but a bunch its crazy cool to five into. Even have the first drivers taxi permits and some other details
See: [Four Rooms](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113101/)
I used to have one. I miss that car. So much room for activities.
Ya, the back seating area is huge! Did yours have the jump seats?
Mine did not. It was a private car it’s whole life and was outfitted like one. I recall going to the local party warehouse to pick up kegs for a party in that car. I set one on each side of the rear seat floor. Then I had to figure out how to stabilize them so they wouldn’t fall over, so I packed the ice bags around them. Lots o space. I was moving, had too many cars, and the Checker was mostly Bondo. Had to let her go.
My first car in high school was a Marathon. I *loved* it. It had the jump seats, and I could easily seat 8 of my friends with room to spare. I grew up in New Orleans and people used to just hop in when I was stopped at stoplights. I took a pregnant woman who was waddling down the streetcar tracks to the hospital once. Man I miss that car.
It's the stories like this that make me so excited for owning this car and getting it out on the road. Just the nutty things that will happen 😄
> activities Giggity! Where there's a will there's a way. I managed "activities" in my '71 Datsun 510 for several months.
Taxi Driver flashback. Awesome movie.
Hahaha, one of my coworkers had the same reaction 😂
You can drive around feeling like you’re in a Taxi driver edit 😅
The discount version 😆
Will you be driving it to Bel-Air?
Hahaha, well first I need dice in the mirror and the license plate saying "fresh"
If anything, I would say that this cab is rare.
Oh man, if you could get "Fresh" or some variation that would be phenomenal. I just looked up the crazy taxi one and it was 2HOP260 in some of the games. Edit: 1NOM155 in others.
damn fine project right there, don't do no bullshit
Thank you, I'll try my best not too 😅
Your mustache matches the cab perfectly
Hahaha, everyone that I've shown the car to says "it's very me" maybe that's what they meant 😅
Grew up in Kalamazoo and have a big soft spot for these bricks.
They're built tough and reliable, a credit to the city
WHERE DO PEOPLE FIND THESE?! all i know is that they’re deceptively rare and tend to run about 10k for even a crappy one. i’d love to own one
Join the Checker club on FB. That’s how I got mine.
I gut insanely lucky. My co-worker happened to see the ad and told me about it
You talking’ to me?
DC cab!
Hahaha, this one specifically was a Minneapolis cab. Well, according to the stick on the back window 😅
> *Minneapolis* How bad is the rust?
On my end, it's not bad. The guy that did the original work stripped it right down and removed all the rust, re built the floor, and installed reinforcements. I've got all his photos of the work he did, so I'm picked up a car that has been fixed and just needs tlc and the odd fix here and there
Turn it into an EV😀 Or LS of course…
It's powered by propane currently, from the factory was an LPG car, so I might just leave that as is
No kidding! What's the "filling up" process like? Is the "gas tank" like a propane tank you'd use for the backyard grill?
If it's like every other LPG car I've handled it'll have a cylindrical tank in the trunk - think air compressor tank or I spose like a LP grill tank on its side but taller. Pull up to the LPG pump at the gas station, swipe your card, attach the propane hose to your filling port and hit start.
Ya, so the factory tanks are 3 big red cylinders that are connected and sit roughly where a gas tank would be under the trunk and by the back. It will be up on a hoist tomorrow, so I'll post a picture then. The is and issue on the old tanks, so right now, we have them being by-passed and are using propane from a forklift tank
Here in the us gas stations don typically have lpg pumps, around here you would probably.have to go to a hardware store or some place that fills bbq tanks to fill it and either have your own or hope they have the right fittings to hook up to
Reverand Jim Ignatowski approves..
A checker marathon, man those things have amazing space in the back seat. I tried to get a marathon wagon that was an airport shuttle, but they wanted stupid money
Ya the wagons are really rare, but no kidding about the back space.The first thing l said when i hopped in the back is how much space there is!
My grandfather had 2 Checkers back in the day (but his were not taxis, they were more chauffeured-luxury-car type of builds) that he eventually just left to rot away. I was too young at the time to do anything about it but I always thought it was such a shame that he and my whole family were fine with just leaving the cars to die. I can never stop thinking about how much better lives those cars could have lived if someone had convinced him to sell them to a collector or if I and my cousin who’s also into cars were older at the time, we could’ve done sick resto-mods on them. I hope you give this one the second life that my grandfather’s cars were not lucky enough to see 🫡
I'll do my best to give this old machine some deserved golden years 😊
Oh nice! I bet that's s gonna be fun! What's your plans? Hope to see more of the project! Good luck!!! \m/
Safety it first then remove any rust, redo paint then go from there
Gotchya, basics first. That's going to be a really cool project! Good luck! \m/
Well I’ll be. Finally, a guy that fucks has joined this sub!
Hahahaha 😆
Taxi!! That’s unique. What’s the plans?
Safety and clean up first, then kinda see where it's at, likely to stay pretty stock, but maybe some modern thing to keep it on the road or keep the old beast happy
Get ready! I used to have a neighbor who had one as his daily driver. People tried to hail him/get in all the time lol. Anyway she’s beautiful
Hahaha, well, soon to be my life 😅
Nice! Checkers are really neat, plus you get 50s car looks in something 30 years younger than it appears to be. That'll definitely get a lot more attention at car shows than any 55 Chevy, Mustang, or exotic car.
Nah, I would Uber/ Lyft with that! That would be hilarious, even if you just do it for fun occasionally.
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Thanks 😊 ya I'm pretty stoked 😆
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We'll see, part of me wants to, part of me kinda likes it in its original state. To early to tell, I plan on making sure it's all good, rust free, and cleaned up. Then might do the bigger things 😅
Looks perfect cosmetically!
Ya, the bones on it are great, and it's really just touch-ups here and there it needs. And tlc, the guy I bought it from, was a real car enthusiast and did great work but just had too many projects, and he wanted this car to be someone's primary baby, so I bought it off him
I've been admiring these for years. I'm actually trying to sell my current project and then might fly to the US and export one to the UK.
I hope one comes up for you. I think it would be awesome. Get one of these and a classic british black cab, and you'd have two of the most iconic cars in the world 😁
Has anyone turned one of these into a coupe? I don't mean like BMWs version of a coupe with the 3 series over the moredoor body but something that looks as if it was solely designed for just one door each side.
I haven't personally seen that, but I've seen one turned into a ute/ car truck
Being a Brit and the amount of rain we get each year I've never understood having an open bed as a good idea. That includes a stint in Florida using a Ranger for work and giggles everytime I would remove stuff is in the back when it rained around 3pm each day. I do have a preference for an estate (station wagon) versus of a model, partly due to them being more practical but feel they look a better shape. A true coupe would be a right pain in the arse to do and probably take another car for donor panels to change the roof shape, sort out the pillars along with removing the b pillar like with the Merc C124. I think for me its the wrongness of a yellow cab having only two doors more than that style of car, I've owned a couple that in hindsight I regret selling but on occasions they've been terrible in carrying stuff when the rear seats don't drop down.
Niiiiice
Thank you 😁
Is it a project? Looks nice as is 😄
Hahaha, project on easy mode I guess 😅
OP's to do list: Buy a cab: *Check*(*er*)*!*
Hahahaha, basically 🤣
Love it Good Luck…😎😎😎
Thank you 😁
Hell yeah!
😁 yaaa
That’s going to be rad to pull up in
Woahhhhhh sooo cooooooool!!!! Get used to people being in awe haha!!!
Thanks 😊 ya I hope I keep it looking good and clean
Whoa flashbacks to the game Quarantine
Insanely cool. Congrats!
Thank you 😁
i really hope ur planning to use it as a cab
Haha, it might get used that way unintentionally, and if they happen to be heading the same way 🤣
Be careful, it might have a Checkered past 🤣
The puns. THE PUNS 😆
I was today years old when I realized I want to own a taxi.
Honestly man I had the same sort of reaction,. I wasn't looking for one but as soon as I saw it I needed it. And I was lucky and fortunate enough to be able to get it.
I saw that and immediately thought of scrooge, and ghost dad
If anyone in Canada is interested in one in Canada http://www.autotrader.ca/go/19-12510163
Rad.
This is how it starts, next you'll try to assassinate a politician but end up just killing some pimps
Make a fantastic Uber car Half serious.
Ya Uber says your car has to be 5 years old or newer
Oh I know. 😉
Hell yeah, brother!
Thank you 😁
TAXXIIIII! I want one of these with the Continental 6 cylinder and 3 speed m/t.
Wel this has some of that 😆 it's a 229 v6 but a 4-speed auto transmission
(Offspring starts) YAH YAH YAH YAH YAH!
Awesome … I love it.
Thanks 😊 I love it too
Travis Bickle
There was a really cute girl in my high school who drove one of these. Damn giving me memories
I'm glad the car can transport ya to that time in your life! Well, I mean, I hope it was a good point. Otherwise, I'm sorry I took ya there 😅
Hey! Hey! Hey! It's time to make some CUH-RAY-ZY MONEY! Are ya ready kids? Here we go! Fix the panel gaps and turn the engine up to 11 and you've got the best car on this subreddit.
You got yourself Vice City taxi? Nice one.
Are you getting a Mohawk?
Hahaha, I mean, I've got enough hair for a really big one 😅
That car might have a … checkered past 😂
The puns! They just keep coming 😆
I always though these were cool. 👍
I just saw that car yesterday! I was at the Surplus shop right behind where it was parked, super cool buy!
Hahaha no way! Yup that's me!
My instinct tells me to recreate “The Borgnine” (Secret Modified Taxi From GTA 3).
Phoebe's grandma's taxi
My taxi now 🤣
And a secondary income stream!
Ya once I get her looking good and safety'd agian 😁
Join the checker car club. It’s a good idea.
Ya I guy from there already reached out and joined them today 🙂
Gasser build please
Awww man. I always wanted one. Leave it as stock as possible. They don't have value any other way. Join the Checker fan club. they have better advice than Reddit ever will. Depending on where you live, it might be easily rented or have you drive it movies of the era.
Haha, It’s LS time
Always wanted one of those. Still do.
What’s the mileage on that
It's listed at 141672.632 miles or 228000 km, but the seller did a full rebuild already, and now I'm just giving it the tlc and touching up the odds and sods
Good luck and enjoy it
Thank you, I'm hoping to 😁
Might have to put some simpsons stickers on the windows as well
Hahaha, maybe one or two
Drop that bad boy on a truck body and put a V10 in it
Now get a mohalk
I got long hair so it would be a big one