The 2010 National Convention will be held Friday, June 18 through Sunday morning, June 20 in Lima, Ohio.  It will be at the newly remodeled Howard Johnson Lima, 1920 Roschman Avenue, Lima, OH, 45804, phone 419-222-0004.  The hotel is conveniently located immediately off I-75 at exit 125-A.

20 rooms have been reserved from Thursday night, June 17 though Saturday night, June 19. To reserve your room at the discounted rate, you must call the hotel directly at 419-222-0004 and specify code "CCCX" (Checker Car Club) to get the special $59 a night rate. Check-in time is 3 PM and check-out time is by 12:00 Noon.

There are multiple events going on in Lima, OH the weekend of the convention, including a Harley-Davidson event.  Rooms MUST be reserved before May 17, 2010.  Any rooms not claimed will be released on May 18 and there is already a waiting list for the Harley group ...so if you don't reserve a room, you'll be sleeping the back seat of your car (like a certain U-Haul distributor did in Kalamazoo one year!).

The traditional Saturday night dinner will be held at "The Barn Out Back" and it will be a buffet for $17.95 per person, all inclusive.

Friday afternoon we will tour the University of Northwest Ohio's High Performance Motor Sports Facility.  This is a one of a kind training facility and many of the graduates go on to work in NASCAR.  Friday evening will will go out to the races; the University operates a dirt track where they race sprint and modified cars, giving the students real hands on experience.  Saturday morning we get a chance to tour Superior Coach division of Accubuilt. Accubuilt was formed by a merger of Superior Coach who have built a wide variety of custom vehicles since 1923 and S & S Coach who have built custom vehicles since 1876.  The Lima location specializes in funeral coaches and related vehicles.

 The 2010 convention registration form is now available online as a PDF: 

2010 National Convention Registration Form

January 14, 2010 Update ... According to a NY Times blog entry on 1/14/2010, the plant was sold to the Jones Company holding group who plan to clear the property. CMC has ceased to exist. You can read the entire entry at the NY Times at

NYT Blog Entry on Checker Motors

December 4, 2009 Update ... The plant has been emptied of all equipment and is in the process of being razed. The disposition of the property after demolition and cleanup is unknown at this time.

July 1 Update ... as of now, Checker Motors has sold off and shut down the remaining GM contracts and associated assembly lines, laid off the remaining 340 employees, and basically closed their doors. The plant itself along with the remaining old presses, etc. still remain. The fate of the plant itself and what remains of the company is unknown at this point; it wasn't really clarified in the various Chapter 11 bankruptcy rulings ... but things don't look good. Let's hope a new use can somehow be found ... some other Michigan auto parts suppliers have managed to successfully convert their plants into producing various new / green energy related products.

The Checker Car Club of America and all of us here at the Taxi Stand wish well to all that have served Checker and acknowledge the fact that we owe them a great deal of respect for building these fine cars.

Checker Motors to Close (WMMT News)

Hat tip to Dave Cline for passing on the link and to past President Joe Fay for the followup research. Joe has done an extensive job of research and we plan to run an article in the Fall newsletter.

From the "was gonna put this up sooner, before [fill in the blank] happened" files:

Max at the ACT Special Car Center in Switzerland sent this photo of a 1964 Checker ambulance, fully restored in their car shop.  Wow!  I had always wondered if one of these had survived, and now we know.

Click here for more information on this car...