I Just Learned Something About Checker Marathons That’s Like A Rambler American: Cold Start

Did you know the city of Kalamazoo, Michigan, was the first to install curb cuts? You know, the little ramps in curbs so you don’t trip or so you can use a wheelchair or something? It’s true. Kalamazoo is also just a really fun word to say, and, notably, was home to two car companies: the Barley Motor Car Company (1916-1929, made a handsome, fancy car called a Roamer, among other things), and, more famously, the company that built the iconic New York cabs, Checker.

There’s a classy Roamer for you; I’m mostly here to talk about Checkers, and, even more specifically, one little fact about them I just learned. So let’s talk about Checkers, specifically, the Checker Marathon.

If you’re curious to see where Checkers were born, there was a 1978 movie called Blue Collar starring Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel that was shot in the Checker factory:

That’s some gritty ’70s goodness right there. Drink it in, nice and deep, savoring every shade of ’70s earthtones. Also, the guy from Alien is in there, too! The guy who kept talking about shares and worked in the parts of the ship with all the steam pipes.

Okay, back to Checker; while taxicabs were their bread-and-butter, their bagels and cream cheese, they nevertheless tried to sell their basic car, which remained basically unchanged from 1961 to 1982, to civilian non-cabbies, as the Checker Marathon. The body design was firmly rooted in the 1950s, and the mechanicals were a minestrone of parts from the Big Three and, notably, AMC. GM inline-6 and V8 engines and transmissions were the usual motive force.

The bit I want to discuss is pretty easy to see there: that massive “girder” bumper, first introduced in 1974. It’s a colossal, heavy battering ram, a byproduct of the car’s primary use as a cab in NYC, which was the sort of place where car bumpers took substantial beatings.

Some versions of the mass-market Marathons even had classy-ass vinyl roofs:

You may notice that the rear bumper looks pretty much identical to the front – and that’s because it is. Look, it even says as much on this cutaway diagram; look at the lower right caption:

I love the idea of front-and-rear-swappable bumpers! It’s such a clever penny-pinching tactic, perfect for a small company like Checker. Previously, I thought only AMC pulled this kind of thing, like they did with the Rambler American’s bumpers, which were identical units front and rear:

Look how they just swapped the amber turn signal lens for the clear reverse lamp! Brilliant! Dazzling cheapsaketery, AMC!

I’m excited to know Checker did this as well now. Of course, I can’t talk about Checker Marathons without reminding you this existed:

The eight-door wagon version. The Aerobus, designed to take people to and from airports. What a sublime machine.