Out of New York.

The last still working Checker cab disappeared from the New York streets in the end of July 1999. for $134.000 it changed owners on an auction, and nobody knows who bought it and if it comes out once and a while. Rumours go around about New-York TV and movie personalities…after his last Checker colleague, with who he battled to be the "last New York Checker driver" stopped earlier in 1999, Earl Johnson stopped as well. Which meant that - except for the fantasy world of movie and TV - there are no more Checker taxi's driving around the New York streets and avenues. Thanks to the rule that taxi's had to be able to house 5 passengers (2 on folding seats like in the London cabs) since 1922 the Checker was a sort of standard taxi in the US. Only in 1954 New York withdrew that rule and the city allowed taxi-companies to use other models. The latest Checker -the famous A9/A11 model - with the twin headlights - known from movies like "Taxi Driver" with Robert DeNiro - rolled of the line of the factory in Kalamazoo (Michigan) in 1982. The Checker company still exists but doesn't want to know much of its rich history and specializes in making body parts for car tycoons like GM.

In need of a new chassis.

Michel Angelich, president of the Checker fan club (The Big Apple Taxi Club) admitted July last year that with the disappearance of the last working Checker cab an area ended. But at least Earl did hang on, had he driven any longer it would have become his coffin. Coming to his end, in his '78 Checker with 6000 miles below a million on the meter, wasn't his idea of a good ending. "First I'm gonna sleep out late" the than 61 year old driver said. The end of his career kept him busy since his car failed for the safety test three years earlier. But his only rival Johann Struna who was driving one of the latest produced Checkers (1981), was still driving so Johnson paid for the needed repairs. There was only one mechanic left in New York which knew something about this "oldies" Two years earlier Struna's Checker failed the test and he did rather quit than pay $3500- for a new chassis. But Johnson's victory wasn't so sweet - the city decided that Earl's Checker needed the same repair although Johnson's mechanic thought it was save enough. Although the ton of yellow metal could have driven on for a couple of years, Earl started to get enough of it. Johnson's cab deserves a place in a New York museum, there is one displayed in Chicago, not in New York yellow but in the soft green and cream colour of the Checker Taxi co.