Who doesn’t call a cab and automatically visualize a perky yellow taxi? Give credit to a man named Morris Markin who rendered the very word "taxi" synonymous with the Yellow Checker Cab. The Checker Motors Corporation was founded in 1922 by a bold Russian businessman named Morris Markin. This emigrant to the United States acquired an auto body manufacturing plant in 1921, a defunct Hadley-Knight chassis plant, and the Dart body plant by the ripe old age of 29. What Markin produced was a huge yellow cab with distinctive black and white checker stripes on either side, extra-wide doors, soft and spacious "jumpy" seats with miles of leg room. By the mid-1970’s there were over 5,000 Checker cabs in NYC alone! The Checker Motor Co. went out of business on June 12, 1982. Although the cars are very nearly extinct, the Yellow Checker Cab has become not only a New York City icon, but a classic piece of true Americana as well.
