This writer has always admired William Crawford’s Checkers. We recently presented the updated restoration photos of Bill’s Checker wagon. One interesting aspect of Bill’s Checker is the unique rear window above the tailgate. Its clearly not stock, but it does have a factory look.
Upon further inspection, the rear window tailgate looks very similar to the unit Checker used on the early 50’s Checker Parmalee Airport Wagon. Note the photograph and compare to Bill’s in the header photo. Both have solid sections with small window inserts.
Bill has reached out to the previous owner, a gentleman named Lance and got the story.
1950 Parmalee Tailgate
According to Lance, “I always hated the rollup up windows so I fabricated that back window from flat square tubing, welding in webbing and filling in the spaces in between with filler. The window comes from one of the windshields of a huge motor home found in a local junkyard, I cut to fit and purchased the rubber on Ebay. The supports are from a fire truck supply company. I then filled in the top slot of the tailgate.”
Lance also added a center T locking latch handle. The latch is clearly a standard lock/handle from Checker A11 taxi. Note it too is consistent with the latch handle/lock of the 50’s!
Well there you have it, another example of Checker owner ingenuity. We Checker’s owners love to make our Checkers our own and clearly Lance did a great job making new tailgate the looks strikingly similar to a earl 50’s tailgate. Its amazing how much to two tailgate window frames look the same.
