There has been public talk about Checkers and trailer queens on social media.  An interesting topic, a nasty and condescending Facebook user posted recently that the folks who criticize unrestored Checkers are the same folks who own Checker “trailer queens”.

We’ll just call him the Checker Monster. The sour puss depicted trailer queens as being gussied up Checkers unable to make a trip to a vintage car shows, not practical Checkers.    The poster proudly demonstrated that his car was not a trailer queen and more importantly,  diminished anybody who dared criticize his rusted hulks.

Check out this video to here the statement

(1) There No Such Thing as a Trailer Queen Final – YouTube

This writer decided to see what other opinions existed regarding trailer queens and more importantly, wanted to understand if there were actually any real Checker trailer queens.   Most Checker owners take pride in driving their Checkers.  This writer was hard pressed to come up with any known Checker trailer queens.  We all proudly drive our Checkers.

A suitable Checker to be trailered

From the opinion standpoint we present J. Sutherland of the Truth About Cars website.  In a 2013 opinion piece Sutherland wrote

“Personal opinion time here: I hate trailer queens. Let me clarify the term “trailer queen” before anybody gets the wrong idea. Trailer queens are vehicles that leave the safety of a garage, enter the safety of a trailer and head out on the street in an enclosure towed by another vehicle.

I saw a very nice car being shoved into a covered trailer this weekend and it just kind of set me off on the topic of trailer queens. Don’t get me wrong, there are many other vehicles beyond broken-down cars that should be towed behind another vehicle. A barely street legal quarter mile ride should be trailered for practical reasons like: microscopic gas mileage, finicky track motors, an earnest desire on the part of their owners to remain in one piece.

Sutherland further wrote

This 70 year old Checker  A4 was not built for the Interstate system

The other side of the equation would be a very early antique vehicle with a top speed of 20-30 mph. They have their place on the road, but not on freeways. They would need a helping hand down a major expressway and that help would be a trailer ride. Nothing wrong with that. After all, if your car was built before the Interstate arrived, it’s probably unfair to expect it to be happy there.”

This writer concurs with Sutherland and more importantly has been proud to drive my Checker Model A8 round trip from Chicago to New York City and Chicago to Atlanta.   That said,  I have trailered my Checker Model A4 to several show, but that car falls into the pre interstate category.

The A4’s top speed is about 50MPH, way too slow to make a safe journey from Toledo to Macungie.  The A4 is not geared for highway, back in the day the Checker A4 was desired for consistent 30 MPH drives with stop and go traffic on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive.  It was not designed for modern multi lane Interstates first introduced by the Eisenhower administration in 1956.  Interstates were designed with a maximum of 80 MPH speeds.  Speeds that period Checker could never sustain.

Now when one looks at standard Checkers produced from 1960 till 1982, that Checkers were produced for an Interstate era, so the “old car” argument may not hold for those Checkers produced post 1959.

These Checkers at the NYC show are all pre Interstate and should be trailered. Yet No. 3 made the drive from Chicago!  (see video)

This writer has been involved in the Checker hobby for over 25 years and has been to many Checker events.  As far as I can remember, there has been only six single Checkers that were trailered to the various Checker shows:

1. 1933 Checker Model T “Gilmore 2002”
2. 1941 Checker Model A “Gilmore 2002”
3. 1982 Checker Drag Car “Gilmore 2002”
4. 1957 Checker Model A8 Standard “NYC 2014”
5. 1956 Checker Model A8 Standard “NYC 2014”
6. 1950 Checker Model A4 “Macungie 2018 & 2019”, “Gilmore 2009” “Auburn 2016”

All of the Checker’s listed above fall into the Sutherland definition depicted above.  Bottomline, there are no know Checker trailer queens across the base of Checker that span 1960-1982.  We are all proud drivers of out Checkers.

Now with respect with the agitated Checker pontificator, its just another example of his “rabble rousing” and defensive tactics to shift the dialog regarding his rusted and dirty Checkers.  Nice try, but there are no known Checker trailer queens

Now that we have discredited the Checker Monsters false narrative, let’s take a rider on a Checker and see beautiful Toledo, Ohio!