1933 Checker T8

When Checker Cab Manufacturing Company entered the Cord Corporation, it was already a name synonymous with the taxi-cab industry. Founded in 1922 by a Russian immigrant named Morris Markin, who legend has it entered the U.S. with just $2.00 in his pocket, would weather the storm of depression and financial scandal while holding onto his creation. In August 1933 Markin was forced out of Checker Cab, but in two weeks time, with Cord’s financial assistance, he quickly regained the office of president. This also placed Cord as controlling stockholder. But it would be Cord’s and Markin’s complicated business relationship which rousted the newly created Securities and Exchange Commission in 1937 to charge stock manipulation, and ultimately brought Cord’s industrial empire to an end. On the wooden firewall, “T6” is stamped as a reference to the model number, yet the data plate reads “T8.” Was this car originally built as a “T6” then upgraded to a “T8,” or was it a prototype taken from the assembly line? We may never know the story behind this oddity.